Webster’s New World Dictionary defines courage as “the attitude of facing and dealing with anything recognized as dangerous, difficult, or painful, instead of withdrawing from it; quality of being fearless or brave...” We can say it in just two words: Lori Holliday.
Lori has survived cancer, not just once but through six recurrences. She was told that her body was too ravaged to bear children, yet she became pregnant twice and is the mother of a son and daughter. When the bones in her jaw crumbled from radiation treatments, a gifted dentist gave her back her beautiful smile; however, the determination and joy in her eyes are purely her own.

Lori’s strength took root in childhood. She was raised on a cotton farm outside of Phoenix, the thirteenth of fourteen children. The family grew a lot of their food, with vegetable gardens, fruit trees, and livestock. Everybody pitched in, and though the family didn’t have much money, they were rich in other ways.

“We did crafts using cereal boxes, nails and boards, and yarn. The cereal boxes became book covers, we made sock puppets and hair bows,” she says. There wasn’t a lot of extra time because of the many chores, but she got involved in sports in high school and learned to crochet. Surprisingly, Lori didn’t know how to use a sewing machine until she founded 2 Red Hens, many years into adulthood. But her mother “had a lot of style” and sewed clothes that rivaled what could be found in the best stores. “Nobody knew we were poor!” is how Lori puts it.

Lori began her career as a mechanical engineer. She received her undergraduate degree from Arizona State and went to the University of Colorado for grad school, earning an MS. She worked as an engineer for 10 years, using her free time to scour flea markets for furniture and other items to repurpose. Her job involved a lot of travel. In every new town, she immediately found the secondhand stores and antique mall.

Romance entered the picture when Lori met her firefighter husband, Mark. He’d served on the same Navy ship as her brother. They dated for less than a year and have been married for seventeen years.

Lori’s career took a turn when an engineering contract ended right before Thanksgiving in 2003. She bought a sewing machine, taught herself to use it, and turned her hobby into a business. In less than a month, 2 Red Hens was launched. The catchy name has its origins in Lori’s earlier life on a farm. Her first products: handbags, tote bags, and diaper bags. At her first trade show in Dallas the following summer, the diaper bags she had on display outsold all of the other offerings. Diaper bags became a staple, and these days there are 10 styles in her line, made from some of the 500 patterns in the 2 Red Hens fabric library.

Lori remarks that she didn’t “quite know where all of this came from.” But she remembers that during her first round of chemotherapy, another patient always brought crafts for herself and for Lori to help pass the time. And she has always loved decorating, as well as hunting for, finding, and gathering supplies. Keeping track of her finds is easy: Lori is very organized and stores everything in clear containers, each one labeled on the outside. There are drawers with buttons, trays of vintage jewelry, everything in its place. Spools of thread reside in a glass jar, looking as pretty as candy. The back wall of the studio has stacks of vintage sheets and neatly folded tablecloths. She jokes that “it isn’t hoarding if it’s organized!”

Lori has been given back her life time after time, repeatedly snatched from the brink. She lives her belief: Nothing should be wasted, neither time nor the things that others would toss out. And people who have survived, who have the battle scars to show what they’ve been though, are of value—no person, no object, has to be perfect, and it is the imperfections that make treasures. Lori turns decommissioned fire hoses into wallets. Old hankies get a second life as doll clothes, tablecloths become aprons and sachets. She turns wool sweaters into magical felted toys and crazy quilt style pillows. “I find importance in the smallest thing,” she says, a lesson she teaches by quiet example rather than by pounding the point home.

In February 2011, Lori started a club called Make & Mingle. “It’s Home Ec for Big Girls,” she explains. The group of women, most of whom are in their thirties, some of whom have children, meet once a month and do a craft for which Lori provides tools and supplies. Lori was the only person who had ever made jam—now all of the members know how. There is a small tuition for each project, and rhinestone scissors are given to new members when they join. The group meets in the 2 Red Hens building, a two-story barn Lori and her husband added next to their home, right beside the huge garden she tends. “As women who have been driven to succeed, we missed out on Home Ec—it wasn’t even taught at school. As you get older you want to make something, enjoy it, do some nesting,” Lori says, further explaining her own choices as well as the mission of the Make & Mingle club. (Proceeds from the Make & Mingle Club go to Have Pearl Vaccine, or HPV, a nonprofit organization committed to ending Cervical Cancer.)

“At the end of the day, I just really like what I’m doing. There is not a right or wrong; you have to enjoy your life and feel confident. That’s how I take my work. As far as life goes, you just have to go for it! 2 Red Hens lets me wake up every day excited about what I’m going to do; I wake up in the middle of the night with ideas. This is never-ending. We should all step back and think about what we’re doing. There is so much stuff out there to use,” says Lori. “I need more hours in the day. Martha Stewart has to retire someday and I’m waiting in the wings.”

Does wisdom come from courage, or does courage result in wisdom? It’s hard to say. But Lori has both. The dictionary defines wisdom as “The quality of being wise; power of judging rightly and following the soundest course of action, based on knowledge, experience, understanding, etc.; good judgment; sagacity...wise discourse or teaching...” We can say it in just two: Lori Holliday.

To learn more about Lori (who has been accurately dubbed “domestic goddess, crafter extraordinaire and the queen of collecting”), visit the 2 Red Hens website and the site of Make & Mingle. Just as it’s easy to fall in love with Lori, you’ll quickly fall in love with the treasures she makes from repurposed clothing, old sweaters, buttons, linens, old prom and bridesmaids’ dresses, decommissioned fire hoses, and other materials. Her unique creations are sold in boutiques from coast to coast and as far away as Japan and the UK. They include Girls’ clothing for the wee ones (newborn to 6), sachets, felted wool Crazy Pillows, 2 Red Friends one-of-a-kind stuffed toys, Castoff Couture (clothing and accessories for women and girls), Formal Flowers, and Aprons.