FARGO — When it comes to figuring out a cottage business, Kathy Botnen has it in the bag.

The South Fargo woman has parlayed a lifetime’s experience with sewing, working as a store buyer and running a previous business into a side hack creating cute, colorful handbags in a rainbow of trendy, eye-catching fabrics.

Botnen stitches up her creations from a spacious sewing room, decorated with turquoise walls and cubbies of neatly folded duck cloth — the sturdy fabric she uses to construct her bags.

This space is filled with artwork from her kids, photos of grandchildren, a copy of Christy Wright’s “Business Boutique,” her Dad’s red naugahyde chair (now covered in a fashionable geometric print) and a midcentury sewing chair just like the one her mom used to occupy when whipping up outfits and fixing hems for the family.

“It’s actually not very comfortable to sit in,” Botnen says, laughing. But, she adds, it’s the thought that counts.

Front and center are two Bernina sewing machines (she actually has five of them) and one of the two sergers she uses for overlock stitching.

Here, Botnen cranks out six bags at a time for her business, It’s In the Bag. The bags boast prints of whimsical flamingos, stylized fish, cartoonish cats, vintage camp settings, coffee cups, sunflowers, holiday themes, florals and whatever else she thinks people might like.

And people do like them. Last year, Botnen sold 150 bags chiefly via one-day craft shows, Facebook and word-of-mouth. That’s pretty impressive when you consider that she also works 32 hours a week at Sanford Health and is a meticulous seamstress who takes several hours to create some of her more complex designs.

Her bags sell for anywhere from $20 for a reversible canvas tote with no pockets to $50 for her spacious “Everyday Tote,” which has two pockets outside, three pockets inside and a keyholder.

Botnen says people often comment on her creativity and artistic bent, but she insists she skews more on the left-brained side.

“This is when all my retail experience comes into play,” she says. “I have a business mind. I won’t work for free. I figure out what my margins are, I figure out what my dollar per hour is for me to sew a bag and what I paid for the fabric. Yes, I've always sewn but I don’t consider myself terribly artistic.”

As fabric costs are high these days, she keeps a close eye on the importance of sticking only to fabrics and styles that sell well and her own productivity.

“It’s the pockets that are time-consuming,” she says of bag construction. “I keep looking for shortcuts because it’s all about productivity. That’s my retail background.”

The Fargo native learned to sew early, thanks to 4-H meetings and her parents. Her mom was a University of Minnesota home-economics major who tailored many of the family members’ clothes.

But it was actually her dad who encouraged her to start sewing as a young girl. “One day he sat me down at the sewing machine and I made a patchwork quilt,” she recalls.

Early on, Botnen’s perfectionism showed up in her handiwork. At age 10, she entered a Make it with Wool contest. She sewed a navy jumper with light blue top stitching — a highly visible detail that showcases sewing skills.

But she won, even getting her picture in The Forum.

For a while, her parents also owned a fabric store from which they sold Bernina sewing machines. Botnen has an affinity for that brand today. She still uses the Bernina she got as a present when she graduated from high school in 1979.

“It weighs a ton and it never dies,” she says, laughing.

When she left her long-time job as a store buyer several years ago, husband, Jeff, encouraged her to treat herself to something she’d long wanted: a brand-new Bernina. 

“It’s computerized — and it’s amazing,” she says. 

Throughout her working life, Botnen has frequently worked in retail. While in college, her early sewing acumen helped her land a job with the Northwest Fabrics store in Moorhead. After going through Northwest's management-training program, she managed stores in Omaha and Minneapolis.

Determined to show a professional image while managing employees twice her age, Botnen whipped up more than a few business suits on her trusty Bernina. 

“Now I say I only sew squares and rectangles,” she says with a grin.

By now she and Jeff had married, started a family and moved to the Fargo area. With three kids born in three years, Botnen launched a home-based business, along with her sister Andrea Husen, making appliqued T-shirts and sweatshirts.

They named their business “3’s Company” to represent the two sisters as well as Jeff, who showed an artistic eye for bedazzling garments and helped them with the numerous craft fairs they attended each year. 

And there were a lot of those fairs in the pre-Etsy 1990s. The business was highly successful, growing to the point where Botnen paid local seamstresses to keep up with the sewing demand. 

Then things changed. Botnen’s sister left the business to get married. Her three kids were getting older and more independent, so she no longer felt it necessary to work from home. “And the craft shows weren’t drawing the attendance they did when we first started,” Botnen says. “I was ready to go back to a traditional workplace.”

Botnen eventually landed at Scheels, moving up to a position as a buyer for the whole corporation. The job was exciting but stressful — buying large quantities of merchandise in hopes that it didn't wind up on the clearance rack.

“I loved retail. I loved the excitement of bringing products in, displaying it and seeing it sell,” Botnen says.

But she was traveling a lot and working 60 hours per week. “I'm an overthinker and I take my jobs very, very seriously and I had millions of dollars that I controlled," she says. "If you don't have a good year, it falls back on the buyer."

After 16 years at Scheels, she left and found the perfect pre-retirement job. She now registers and schedules patients at Sanford’s foot-and-ankle clinic for 32-hours-per-week — enough hours to get family health insurance, as Jeff works independently as a Realtor, but also giving her a day off each week to be creative and sew bags.

By now, the bag business was ramping up. When her sister asked Botnen to sew a beach bag for when she wintered in Arizona, she created one decorated with turquoise seashells and with a water-proof vinyl bottom.  Husen so loved the bag that she urged her to make a few more to sell.

When Botnen tentatively posted her first bags on Facebook, she didn’t know what to expect. So many raves and orders followed that Botnen feared she’d created a fabric-covered monster. Daughter, Annalise, had to reassure her that the furor would die down to manageable levels after a while.

In May of 2021, Botnen created a special Facebook page for her business, where she posts her latest creations.

"I already knew the craft business but it's so different now," she says. "It's all about online and social media."

In fact, she views social media and technology as presenting the biggest learning curve this time around.

But creating totes that appeal to the masses comes naturally to her. She seems to have an eye for choosing winsome fabrics and mixing them with other harmonious prints.

Forever the buyer, she says, “I love to buy fabric. That excites me.”

She’s found that bright colors and florals seem to have the most universal appeal. Dogs, cats and birds are hugely popular with people who like those animals, but rule out anyone who isn't an animal lover. Coffee-themed fabric, she's found, reaches a wider audience.

One of her surprising hits has been a bag emblazoned with sunglass-sporting flamingos. In fact, Botnen laughs as she says Annalise asked her to quit making flamingo bags.

But time and time again, the flamingo purses will sell out.

Botnen had figured most of her customers were in the over-30 demographic but discovered she may have a broader appeal. When Pride in the Park was scheduled for Aug. 13, she and Annalise decided to reserve a booth.

But Botnen wasn’t sure what she could make to appeal to a younger and more urban crowd. Then Annalise mentioned a simple canvas bag and suggested she make those.

Botnen created one, but made it stand out from mass-produced bags by lining it with fabric so it was reversible. She priced it at $20 and sold all but one.

“You’ve got to have lots of price points,” says Botnen, again leaning on her retail experience.

In the interest of using up spare fabric from the purses, Botnen and Annalise also work together to make decorative throw pillows. Botnen chooses the fabrics and sews the pillows, but Annalise tops off each one with Cricut-created slogans like, “It’s All Good in the Woods,” “Blessed and Thankful,” or — for fall — “Simply Gourd-geous.”

"The camping one definitely seems to be the one that people want more of," she says.

Mom and daughter also team up to do eight or so craft fairs a year, with Botnen selling her bags and Annalise selling headbands, scrunchies, covers for badge reels and wristlet key chains under her label, El Belle Designs.

“It’s nice we’re able to do shows together. I couldn’t do them without her,” says Botnen, relaxing on the deck of the Botnens’ condo which looks out at the glass-like surface of Bluemont Lakes.

She also is a Pride of Dakota member and posts her bags on that organization’s shopping site, www.shopnd.com . One advantage to the site is that it automatically figures sales tax and shipping and covers credit card fees upfront.

Once Botnen fully retires, she says she would love to turn her venture into a full-time enterprise. In fact, she and Jeff have a running joke that once Botnen retires for good, he will treat himself to a sports car.

But Botnen says she doesn’t make bags strictly for the money or even the praise from satisfied customers.

"It’s not even about that,” she says. “I started the bag business because I finally had time to sew and be creative again. I had forgotten how much I enjoyed it."

Find It's in The Bag at www.facebook.com/itsinthebagnd.