Maine Vibes Magazine: Can you state your name, and pronouns, and talk about your business?

Lauren Beveridge: My name is Lauren Beverage, my pronouns are she/her, and I own Scout + Bean. I sew rope into really cool things like baskets, bowls, trays, and backpacks. I have always been a maker and I’m always doing something with my hands, even when I was young. My mom taught me how to sew and handed down my great grandmother’s avocado green Singer Featherweight sewing machine. I would sew pillows for my dolls, skirts, and messenger bags, and I brought them to college with me.

With Scout + Bean, I saw rope one day and knew lots of people make coil baskets, I thought to myself, I can do that. That’s always been my mentality, I can do that, I can make that work. I went to Reny’s, got a cotton clothesline, and decided to make a rope bowl. My husband was working, my daughter was a peanut, so I was at home and extra cash is always good to have so I decided, I’ll make these. I posted them on Facebook and people were super excited. It was like, Oh, you like these? Cool. So I started making bowls and using leather scraps as my tags and figured out the tension on my sewing machine and taught myself how to make them.

In the beginning, I was sewing using Reny's rope on my Singer sewing machine that my mom had bought me 10 years prior for my bridal shower.

MVM: Do you still have your great-grandmother’s sewing machine?

LB: Oh yeah, totally. It’s in an avocado green box, it’s all metal, I’m sure it will last forever. I plan on teaching my daughter how to sew on it someday and then I’ll hand it down to her.

Lauren’s great-grandmother’s Singer sewing machine

MVM: That is so cool! Can you tell me about the name Scout + Bean?

LB: Yeah, it’s so cool, so cyclical! So the name of Scout + Bean, Scout is from To Kill a Mockingbird, my favorite book, and the name of our first furbaby, who has since passed. And Bean was what we called our daughter before we knew her gender.

MVM: So your mom taught you how to sew and did your great-grandmother as well?

LB: My great-grandmother taught me to knit. She would babysit me on the weekends and would make me Kraft Macaroni and Cheese and serve it in a Cool Whip container and we’d watch The Price is Right. She’d sit in her armchair and put me between her legs on the floor and hold my hands and we would knit together.

My grandmother would knit too, she’d knit dishcloths and not even need to look. We’d go over and there would be a pile of dishcloths and I’d always take them. She would never weave the ends so she’d tell us we could have them but we’d have to weave in the end. Up until two years ago when she passed away, I never learned how to knit dishcloths because she was always doing it. I taught myself the pattern and now I make them. My sister loves it because I knit the ends!

MVM: It sounds like you have a lot of makers in your family, one of them being your mom. I read that she made all your clothes when you were younger.

LB: I feel like such a jerk now as an adult, because when you're a kid, you want the Mudd jeans that everybody else has or the North Face fleece. My mom would make all of our stuff, looking back it’s so awesome, but as a kid, I did not want to wear her clothes. Now, as a mom, I make some of my kids' clothes. My mom also made us intricate quilts. As a kid, I didn’t know the hard work and care that was put in, looking back though, it is so precious, but it’s all about perspective, right?

MVM: Yeah, definitely. It’s so wild having kids yourself and seeing the other side of parenting, your whole life changes.

LB: Yes! Even when someone tells you it’s going to change, you’re like yeah yeah, and it does! Everything starts going at warp speed. The minute you have a kid, you’re watching them grow an inch a second and it all starts going so fast. I cannot express to you how privileged and happy it makes me that we are in a position where our family can have the time we do together, I know a lot of moms and dads don’t get that time when their kids are little.

MVM: Right, and you built that life, and congrats to you for being able to put your family in that position.

LB: It’s pretty fantastic. So, I went to UMF and got a degree in Psychology and then worked as a nanny for seven years in Massachusetts and saved with the idea that we would always come back to Maine. We ended up buying an old farm property that my husband’s dad grew up on in Lincolnville and I designed the house and we built it! How crazy is that, it’s almost like, is this real life?

MVM: Does it feel at all like you’re watching yourself in this life?

LB: A little bit! I step back and think is this real life? I’m sewing rope! Is this real!? I thought for sure when COVID hit that, that was it.

MVM: Your products are beautiful and so well made! What was the reasoning behind deciding to make these items? It seemed like it came out of a practical need.

LB: Yeah, it was summer and I needed something to keep my veggies in, so I made a big bowl with handles, nothing super fancy but I used the heck out of those. I had made a lavender-colored bowl for my grandmother before she got sick and she loved it, she was so proud, so it evolved from there.

MVM: Can you tell me about your creative process?

LB: I get inspired to make baskets, so I did this basket that has a wooden handle and my husband is my go-to guy for my copper and wood, he does all the cutting, reaming, and sanding. If I need birch rounds, he’s got it. I do these baskets sort of like the ones you see at farmer’s markets, like totes and they have a solid leather handle, but I wanted to make it out of wood and have it attached. I get these little ideas, like now I want to use copper, and thread the rope through the copper, and then it becomes handles. Then I found Jen of Maine Thread in Lewiston, they make cord and waxed cord/thread, so I wrapped that around the rope and then I get more creative from there.

MVM: What year did you start selling?

LB: I think four years ago. I started on Facebook and was making one-of-a-kind bowls and mailed them to whoever wanted one, which was so tedious. Then I met up with my friend Rachel Jones from On The Round Yarn in Rockland. She was so mattered of fact, she told me to get a website, I didn’t want to because it wasn’t ready, but she said just launch it, it’s never going to be perfect. So I did, and she was right, of course, she was right. I needed that kick in the butt to get it out there.

MVM: Thinking about when you started your business to now, how was that process? How did you go from Facebook to a website and how long did it take you to make a product then as opposed to now?

LB: It all seems like warp speed. Listing them online, I had to get into the mindset of making the same size thing. In a lot of ways, it’s like pottery where you’re forming the shape, but it needed to be standardized. If I make a Catchall bowl, it needs to be so many inches across the bottom and then this tall and this wide at the brim.

In the beginning, I was saying yes to every opportunity because it was exciting. You have to hustle, it’s not all going to come easy, you have to say yes to the big things. It got to the point though that it was too much. I found that I was becoming a factory, which is my mentality, to work hard and struggle through it. I was getting tired and burnt out and felt like it wasn’t fun anymore.

Last year I drastically reduced my wholesale orders and stockists, but it was the right thing. Now I can make it be what I want it to be. This past year I was able to really redefine success. I asked myself what do I want to do? I’ve had a lot of deaths in our family in the last four or five years and at the end of the day, what is it that I’m going to remember? I’m not going to remember sitting there sewing for 12 hours and shipping stuff, I’m going to remember going and visiting my gram or getting in the car and taking my kid hiking in Acadia. That’s what I want life to be. I know that I’m privileged, I get that. I’m making this situation work for now.

MVM: Right, you shaped it into what you want your life to look like and were set up and made choices to get there.

LB: I do understand not everyone is given these choices, a lot of times it feels surreal, it’s wild.

MVM: So, a reader asked about your Joanna Gaines (Magnolia and Fixer Upper) order, did she purchase your bowls?

LB: Yes! Two years ago out of the blue, I got an email from Erin French of The Lost Kitchen saying she was starting a makers market and was doing an online Christmas market and she wanted to order some of my stuff for it. It was like, are you shitting me!? So I sent her some stuff and right after Thanksgiving, I got this email from her, all of my stuff sold out in eight minutes. She emailed me the next day and told me that Joanna Gaines bought three of my pails. I just remember sobbing. I now see my trays on her show and it’s wild! Erin has created magic over there.

Lauren Beveridge
Scout + Bean

Lauren with one of her Harvest Baskets

MVM: Ok, so you’re doing this all by hand by yourself and sending this out your door to people everywhere! How does that feel!?

LB: Unbelievable. Most days I’m like, is this really my life? Is this the Matrix? Right now I’m too much of a perfectionist to hire people to help sew. If I were to hire out for anything it would probably be for an office manager or packing and shipping help.

MVM: And now you have merchandise-type products too, right?

LB: Yeah, two years ago I reached out to Sarah of Port and Pine Creative and I needed a logo and a website design. She designed a logo and implemented a gorgeous website for me and was a dream to work with. I decided, cool, we’ll put this on a t-shirt, and if people buy them, great!

I also have worked with Holly from Creations Lab Shop in Windham who is fabulous.

MVM: Did I read that you were in the coffee industry, too?

LB: Yeah! I roasted coffee for a local coffee roaster, it was the coolest gig. Then from there, my friend Mykyla Hall and I started the Maine Coffee Bar and did that for a year. It was so cool, we traveled the whole state serving cold brew coffee on tap from different roasters.

MVM: That sounds like so much fun. What is your favorite thing about Maine?

LB: My favorite thing about Maine is you look behind you and you have the mountains. One day you can be here at the beach or be swimming in the ocean, and an hour later you can be hiking or driving to Acadia or camping. Our land is so diverse.

MVM: Maine is SO beautiful, that’s for sure! Do you have any advice to share with other people who maybe haven't started their business yet and are thinking about it?

LB: I think I would definitely share the advice of, you just have to do it. And not necessarily jump uninhibited or quit your day job. Do it on some level and do it confidently because just don't know. You don’t know if people are going to like rope bowls! I didn’t grow up thinking, I’m going to make rope bowls someday, but it worked. If you’re going to do it, do it wholeheartedly and people will come.

MVM: I think with that too, people can feel the excitement when you’re excited and feel when you’re genuine.

LB: I think so too. Do it, it’s never going to be a perfect time, but you just have to do it.

MVM: Great! Do you have any businesses you’d like to mention and show some love to?

LB: Rachel from On The Round, she’s in Rockland. Nina from Wild Rosie, Amanda from North Shore Notions, she’s over in the Smithfield Area. Tiffany Erskine from Tiffany K Expressions, Amanda from A&E Stoneworks. There are so many amazing people.

MVM: I love how supportive everyone is of each other, it’s so good.

LB: It feels really good.

MVM: It does, and you’re part of spreading those good vibes, so thank you!!