Growing Greenup - HCW Wrap Up

Growing Greenup

HCW Wrap Up

Anne Stephens

For The Ashland Beacon

The third annual Handcrafted Weekend is now in the history books! A partnership between the Greenup County Extension Community Arts Program, Greenup County Quilt Guild, Greenup County Tourism Commission, and Greenbo Lake State Resort Park, this unique event showcases heritage skills, functional art, demonstrations, hands-on opportunities, and lots of fun!

Greenup Arts thanks UK/KDMC for their support as a sponsor that helped bring some new artisans to our event. We have many local artists and artisans who take part in the event, AND we always add something new so that our repeat attenders can have new experiences each year.

The Quilt Guild displayed over 100 quilts/quilted items and logged 329 viewers who signed the guest book. The actual number is most likely There were five quilt-specific vendors on the ground floor of the lodge who were able to visit, network, and vend with the crowd. We appreciate their participation each year. Viewer’s Choice ribbons were awarded to the KYOVA Quilt Group, 1st place; Susan Williams, 2nd place; and Chris Toponak, 3rd place. Congratulations!

Greenbo’s restaurant, Angler’s Cove, opened their buffet with fried chicken, fried catfish, beef tips & rice, ribs, lots of vegetable choices, rolls, salad bar, and desserts all weekend long. They stayed busy the whole time! There is nothing quite like the catfish at Greenbo – it’s my favorite. Oh, and the blackberry cobbler with ice cream.

Each day brought a special performance to end the day’s festivities. Saturday was a puppet show by Squallis Puppeteers from Louisville and Sunday was a concert by the Rail City Dulcimer Society. The dulcimer group is a long-time partner of Greenup Arts and a local favorite. Their music is lovely and fills the lodge lobby area with historic and comforting sounds of Kentucky’s state instrument, the mountain dulcimer. Thank you to Betty Woods for organizing the performance and to Gina Woods for being their group spokesperson. These ladies do an outstanding job!! I am proud to work with them.  

These are the demo artists, their business names, and their media:

·      Angela Carpenter/Uniquely Whimsical - needle felting

·      April Graf/Old Silo Farm – wooden caddy, farm items

·      Ashland Area Woodcarvers Club – various hand-carved items including caricatures 

·      Christy Harris/Appalachian Soul Hat Company– custom design embellished hats

·      Dave Lovins/The Hammer’s Fall – blacksmithing: knives, jewelry, hooks, etc.

·      Dave Sterkle/The Grumpy Bavarian – birdhouses

·      Diana Wireman and Stacy Hanson/Bluegrass Blessings – fiber art, spinning, cross stitch

·      Greenup County Quilt Guild – quilt show and quilting vendors on the first floor

·      Jeff Lambert/Dulcimers by Jeff – dulcimer luthier

·      Jenn Amburgey – painting, sculpture

·      Jennifer Huff/Sunny Brooke Farm—macrame, knitting

·      Jill Robertson/Appalachia’s Daughter – metalworking: jewelry | stained glass

·      Kevin Toney and Chris Toney/Silver Run Ranch – alpacas and lamas, sheering, spinning, dying, and weaving custom items

·      Michael Garvin/Kentucky Memories – fiddle repair

·      Mike Parsons/C.W. Parsons & Co. Guitars – guitar luthier

·      Samantha Davis – specialty crochet animals

·      Shannon Lewis/Bluegrass Brooms – custom brooms

·      Teresa Walters/The Goat Lady Farm – soap, macrame, woodburning with gourds

·      Thea Cline – painting

·      Tom Hudson/Pigpen Pottery – clay artist: potter’s wheel

Please reach out if you are interested in contacting any of these talented and skilled artists/artisans. I am happy to put you in touch. You can find many of them at the Greenup County Farmers Market (opening day is May 10), on social media, or at area vendor events. They all accept commission work and are the best choice for gift giving! There is nothing like a handmade gift, even if you hired someone else’s hands to do the work. In my case, that is the best option! I love to be creative, but music is my area of specialty. Personally, I leave the artisan work to the pros. The people on this list are definitely pros!

For 2025, we expanded the class offerings to provide more hands-on opportunities. Each class was led by an experienced instructor and filled up quickly! These are the classes that took place this year:

·      Allen and Roy from the Woodcarvers Club led a beginning woodcarving class

·      April Graf led a wooden caddy kit-building project

·      Diana Wireman led a beginning cross stitch project

·      Jenn Amburgey led a dyed corn husk flower project and an air-dry clay luminary project

·      Jessica Evans led a watercolor painted greeting card project

·      Jill Robertson led a stained-glass class

·      Nora from Squallis Puppeteers led a sock puppet class

·      Park staff, Mason Campbell, led a hike with a keepsake resin art project led by Rachel Robins

·      Shannon Lewis led a broom-making project

Class lists showed that 131 people experienced learning a new skill.

We estimate that 500 people attended the event each day over the two-day event.

Plans for next year include expanded parking with shuttle service and additional dedicated handicapped parking. 100% of the 2025 participants have agreed to return in 2026. The artisan/vendor component of Handcrafted Weekend is by invitation only. If you or someone you know would be a good fit, please let us know! Mark your calendar for the second weekend in April – we’ll do it again in 2026 on April 11 through April 12.

For more information, contact Anne Stephens, Agent for Community Arts and Development in Greenup County. 606.836.0201 anne.stephens@uky.edu 35 Wurtland Avenue, Wurtland, KY 41144 The Martin-Gatton College of Agriculture, Food and Environment is an Equal Opportunity Organization with respect to education and employment and authorization to provide research, education information and other services only to individuals and institutions that function without regard to economic or social status and will not discriminate on the basis of race, color, ethnic origin, national origin, creed, religion, political belief, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression, pregnancy, marital status, genetic information, age, veteran status, physical or mental disability or reprisal or retaliation for prior civil rights activity. 

University of Kentucky, Kentucky State University, U.S. Department of Agriculture, and Kentucky counties cooperating.