Lisa Samstag | Brooklyn, New York

Brooklyn crafter, Lisa Samstag, learned to knit from her Estonian grandmother at four year’s old!

Today she complements her work as a psychologist and professor by knitting the amazing and adorable hedgehogs that quickly became a favorite of our customers. Lisa also knits beautiful baby and toddler jumpers in a variety of yarns.

Knitting brings Lisa great joy.  She loves to make these handcrafted items and, happily, kindly shares them with all of us.

Bonnie Johnson

Handcrafts are often passed down from one generation to the next, as is the case with Bonnie Johnson, whose mother taught her to knit and crochet.

Bonnie uses sport weight yarn to make the soft and adorable owl sweaters that have become one of the Exchanges most popular baby gifts. She gets great pleasure from seeing how much interest and delight people continue to have in hand crafted items.

When she is not knitting, Bonnie works as a volunteer at her local Women’s Exchange where she can often be found selling a baby sweater she made herself.

Dennis J. Taylor | New Canaan, Connecticut

All carvings are done by hand, using primarily a single carving knife and an occasional hand tool called a gouge. No sand paper or smoothing devices are used. All carvings are shaped with only the cutting edge of the tool used. Carvings are made from basswood (often called a linden tree), the wood most sought by carvers for its favorable qualities. Each piece of wood is unique, with its own set of characteristics and occasional flaws embedded within it, such as where the grain changes direction. These areas present a carving challenge and absorb paint differently. All of these conditions combine to make each carving unique and give it its natural character and distinctive handmade look. Dennis paints with highly diluted colors so the wood grain and hand carved texture show. Each carving is finished with two coats of a special blend of beeswax, carnauba wax, and walnut oil that is non-toxic and food safe, then hand buffed to give it a satin sheen.

Joanne Rueckerl | Brooklyn, New York

Brooklyn jewelry maker, Joanne Rueckerl, is self-taught and has been making her beautiful and popular jewelry since 1999. She has always been attracted to making things with her hands.  Jewelry making was a natural extension of that attraction.

Joanne works with quartz, pearls and semi-precious beads. Her findings are silver. In her own words: “There is something very grounding about making necklaces, working with the stones and putting the pieces together.”

Tony Okerson | Golconda, Illinois

A woodworker for over 20 years, Tony Okerson began carving his name trains for the Memphis Women’s Exchange after retiring from his career in the U.S. Air Force. He inherited his tools and basic designs from his father, who carved the letters, engines and cabooses before him. The cedar he uses comes from locally harvested downed trees that he cuts and saws himself. Tony says his enjoyment of his craft comes from working with wood to create something he knows someone will be happy to get. Over the years Tony has enhanced his designs and added seven more Women’s Exchanges where his trains are perennial favorites, just as they are for our Brooklyn customers.

Heidi Magenheimer | New Jersey

Personalized, one-of-a-kind decorative baby items, often made from recycled fabrics, are Heidi Magenheimer’s specialty. Heidi began her self-taught crafting work more than forty years ago after her fifth child was born. The Brooklyn Women’s Exchange is delighted to be one of five Exchanges offering her made-to-order personalized crib banners.

Barbara Silverstein | Mansfield, PA

“I live in an open area where my ‘models’ sometimes literally show up at the back door. Besides squirrels and birds, we’ve been visited by skunks, bats, ‘possums, raccoons, a rooster and a black bear.” Inspired by the world around her, Barbara Silverstein creates wonderfully realistic stuffed animals that have delighted Exchange customers since she began crafting for us in 1992. Again in her own words, “I was delighted when once, at an outdoor show, a black Lab (retriever) grabbed a mallard from my table and ran off with it in his mouth… It was a highlight of my career.”

Kathy Jeffers | Woodbourne, New York

Kathy Jeffers has worked as a potter and clay sculptor since 1970. Her ceramic pieces are made by pressing vintage hand made lace or doilies into the clay before shaping, glazing, and firing. This process preserves the original and delicate handwork. Her beautiful plates and bowls are food, dishwasher and microwave safe.

Kathy maintains a pottery studio in Woodbourne, New York, where she sells her pottery and teaches classes. Kathy is happy to custom make a ceramic piece using an old piece of lace that you would like to preserve and highlight.

Dorothy Irwin | Brooklyn, New York

Brooklyn crafter, Dorothy Irwin, makes beautiful cards using imagery that is 100 years old - sometimes older that she finds at antique shows and flea markets. "The colors and design of these pieces have an incidental beauty, and it's thrilling to me to put them back into circulation." Thank you, Dorothy. It's thrilling to us as well.

Sabine Rosenstein | Brooklyn, New York

Brooklyn potter, Sabine Rosenstein, grew up in Germany, where use of handmade tableware is common and the homes of family and friends are full of individually crafted work. Her love of pottery is heavily influenced by these early memories. Many of her items showcase carved designs inspired by nature and the city alike. She enjoys finding new architectural details in her neighborhood for her Brownstones carved into the clay. Her glazes are hand mixed, lead free and safe for food. All pottery is dishwasher safe and microwaveable.

Lynn Lieberman | New York, New York

New York artist, Lynn Lieberman, believes there is no better way to get to know an area than to create a map of your very own. Lynn's watercolor maps of Brooklyn Heights grace postcards, note cards, posters, tea towels, aprons and totes. She enjoys including historic buildings, parks and restaurants and finds it particularly satisfying to have captured favorite places to preserve images of places that have since been replaced.

Margareta Horn | Memphis, Tennessee

From her first success as a crafter for The Women’s Exchange in Memphis, Margareta Horn’s garden-inspired Sweet Pea caps have been turning heads in country lanes and city streets. Margareta has been crafting for the Brooklyn Women’s Exchange for over ten years and is willing to take special orders. Born in Sweden, Margareta began knitting when she was nine years old. She started her cottage industry in 1993, just a few years after she moved to Tennessee. From a kitchen in Silverthorn Cove, her business has grown to include over 500 styles and more than 10 knitters. Margareta is also involved in a humanitarian project named Livslust (tr. joy of life) which enables young people to get a better start in life.

Marcia Anderson | North Andover, Massachusetts

Beautiful, smocked cotton dresses are the handwork of Marcia Anderson, one of our treasured crafters for more than 15 years. Smocking is a type of decorative needlework used for holding gathers in place. One of the few peasant handcrafts of England, it is still carried on after hundreds of years. Marcia uses a manual “pleating machine” to evenly pleat and ready the fabric for the design. She feeds the fabric with one hand while cranking it with the other. The result is a unique, comfortable, heirloom-quality dress that will hold up to wearing and washing for years to come.

Jewelry by Anna Harper | Brooklyn,
New York

Anna loves creating jewelry that has simple elegance to it and reflects the natural world. Her shop is green and sociably responsible, from start to finish. All of her stones are responsibly resourced. Anna designs her pieces with the environment in mind, using recycled metals, and then recycles the scrap metal. She believes in slow production and creating a higher quality product. Her techniques are based on old world metalsmithing techniques instead of modern mass production. Anna's designs are heirloom quality, meant to last. 

Maryna Yatsenko | Brooklyn, New York

From the moment Maryna picked up a pair of knitting needles, she was enchanted by the unlimited possibilities to transform yarn into a fashionable and unique cloth. Her gorgeous hats and scarves for children and adults have been in great demand at the Brooklyn Women's Exchange since she first walked through our door. She uses a wide variety of  yarns from mohair and alpaca to cotton and acrylic in every color imaginable. Maryna's style is constantly evolving and her work shows it.