We are opening a store at Torekällberget Open Air Museum!

Some news is more fun than others - here's one that definitely beats most:

WE HAVE GOT SHOP PREMISES!

And not just any place, but a wonderful studio and shop at Torekällberget Open Air Museum in Södertälje. For those of you who don't live in this town and don't know Torekällberget, we tend to call it a little carelessly the mini-fortress. High up on a hill in the middle of town is this place with buildings from different parts of the parish from the past, you could say. The area is divided into the City and the Country. In the Country there are horses, cows, sheep, goats, pigs, rabbits, roosters and chickens and maybe something more that I don't know about. In the City we find Handelsboden, the Bakery, Lindblom's café, the Pottery and much more. And there, in the City, next door to the Pottery , in the part of the row of houses called Bostadshuset, we will have both a studio and a shop!

This feels special in so many ways.

Since I was born and raised and still live in Södertälje, I have of course been to Torekällberget a few times. My very first extra job as a 15-year-old was as a museum guard in the buildings. I counted visitors and made fires. And ate caramels from Handelsboden. Fine cones with breast caramels and candy canes.

During the 80s and 90s, revues and theater were performed at Torekällberget and I was a part of this for several years. I never forget the performances we performed and can often miss that context. We were young, dedicated, talented, energetic and above all we had a lot of fun!

Friends of mine ran the bakery and Café Bellevue, where we met on the weekends for breakfast or brunch. Everyone was there, as well.

When many of us in our circle of friends later had children, Torekällberget was a given place to meet with the children, where they could actually be let loose relatively freely and pet the animals, ride ponies and gorge on ice cream and cinnamon buns.

Over the last 10-12 years I haven't been to Torekällberget much, apart from my walks sometimes taking me over the mountain and I always stop somewhere and look through a window or into the Pottery. There I also had the great joy of taking a pottery course with some friends, their 50th birthday present to me.

As it is with me now , I come up with things and start sketching in my head how I could make it a reality. Many times when I have walked through the area up there on the mountain, I have thought that it would be so perfect to have a shop there. My fabrics are made for that environment, I have thought, and there is a need for more craftsmanship that visitors can take part in when they visit the museum. All said and done, when the time was right and my brain had processed it, I contacted the museum director and now here we are! It turned out that the management on the mountain had the same view of this as I did and the premises were available.

And now we come to the other good news: I will be sharing the premises with my constant bearer of honor Anna Söderström. Anna is also a bit of a creative multi-tasker and, among other things, makes very fun and beautiful embroidered paintings, knits super nice things, crochets and sews. For many years we have talked about having a shop together, where we can produce and sell high-quality crafts with a twist. At first, it will mostly be Madeleine Wideland Designs in the shop, but eventually our shared things will appear and Anna will also have her own brand.

I can't describe in words how fun and right this feels, I probably haven't even grasped it yet.

We are opening very soon!

And as you can see, the high season has started at the museum, which means we will open as early as May 5th! We got the keys the day before yesterday, so now we are working at full speed - to say the least.

So now all you have to do is head to Södertälje and the Torekällberget Open Air Museum this summer! You'll find us in Bostadshuset, next door to Krukmakeriet.

Warm welcome!

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