TroublemakersBags

Picture it...San Luis Obispo...1991...Mary Hubka and Charity LaSage meet by chance when their boyfriends plan for them all to go to the movies together. We saw Curly Sue, possibly one of the worst movies ever, Charity ordered a "pop" and I thought she was odd (Michigan...enough said). I wore knee high black boots (very dramatic) and Charity thought I was a cowgirl. I was going for goth biker, but like I said, she's from Michigan. Who knew that all these years later those guys would be long gone, but we would still be together?

We ended up running a quilt shop in Davis for years. We also saw each other through life's ups and downs (and not just jeans sizes...although we saw plenty of those). The earlier years saw lots of odd hours as we raised our families and tried to stay sane. I'm not sure we accomplished achieving sanity, but the kids did grow up as all seem to do. So many changes in over twenty years. One thing remained constant through all of them, though. Mary and Charity. Partners in crime, guaranteed alibis, and 100% troublemakers.

On one of our many crime sprees (business trips) I got it in my head that we should make ourselves some really cute makeup bags, funky and weird for me (typical) and old lady traditional for Charity (Have you forgotten she's from Michigan?) Never mind that neither of us had ever made a bag in our lives. Never mind that although we could quite possibly piece any quilt we wanted to, neither one of us had ever put in a zipper. Way too scary! So I set out to figure out exactly what I wanted to do and how I was going to do it. Charity set out to watch me figure out exactly what I wanted to do and laugh at how I thought I was going to do it. Ah, friendship. One weekend and about sixteen bags later, I thought I'd liked what I'd made. Let me just say, that that was most expensive make up bag I've ever owned, and I will cherish it always (even though the seams are uneven and the zipper is off kilter and threads are hanging off it).

That was the end of the great makeup bag experiment. We didn't think much of it after that. Then, one day in the quilt shop, I showed it to someone and they said, "Hey, you should sell those!" Sell them? Are you nuts? Do you know how long this took me to create? Never going to happen. Until I decided it was, and convinced Charity to go all in with me. Best thing we've done in a while!

We decided, right from the start, that there was no way we were going to sell anything with our names on it that wasn't, in our opinions, perfect. We would use only 100% high quality quilting cotton. We would find a perfect stabilizer for our bags, even if it was a little more expensive. We would make every bag with a matching zipper and thread and every bag would have a beautiful lining that matched the outside of the bag. No muslin linings for us!

And, we needed a name...Hit The Sack...no...Bag Ladies...no...It's In The Bag...no...we needed something that really hit to the heart of who Charity and I are, a name that looks deep into our souls...Troublemakers...perfect!

So that's it. That's our story. We launched an Etsy page and website so customers could find us online easily. We also travel to craft fairs and quilt shows all over and have sold over 8000 bags so far! And, have no fear, no matter where we go from here, where we end up, we'll be causing all sorts of trouble along the way.