You’ve seen it on Insta, in the big magazine and at your local ski shops: Skis imagined, designed and then on the market via the vision of world-champion skiers.

But what if an everyday ski bum; someone who knows and loves the mountains in a you-and-me kind of way, were to design a ski?

Parlor Skis (https://parlorskis.com), the East Boston-based ski company that’s growing more popular by the day, had just that vision.

Meet the Female Ski Bum, a ski imagined, created and now skied on with the New England female ski enthusiast in mind.

Better yet, meet Merisa Sherman, creator of the FSB. She’s no world champion; she’s never been featured on Wide World of Sports. But she has spent her entire life crafting a lifestyle in and around skiing. She also writes the “Living The Dream” column in The Mountain Times (https://mountaintimes.info) and sells real estate, all career choices to fit around her ski bum days.

Parlor found her, tapped into her history and gave her the reigns to create the perfect ski for her — and she hopes for all female ski bums.

Sherman, who calls Killington Mountain in Vermont her home hill, knew Parlor co-founder Mark Wallace via a high school friend (she went to Deerfield in Massachusetts) and would chat him up when she bumped into him at ski shows.

“When he said to me, ‘we’ve got to get you on our skis,’ I had no idea what he actually meant,” she remembered. Three years ago, she found out just what he meant when he told her he wanted her to design a ski, “a ski that you want.”

So she did.

Her goal: a ski that is comfortable in most eastern terrain and conditions (read: versatile) and that feels right under her feet. In other words, she wanted one ski that felt right almost all the time – and felt right on her.

“So many skis are designed by big racing guys,” she said. “I wanted one sheet of metal instead of two, and I wanted versatility. Take on moguls but bounce into the trees. Carve down slalom turns but smear through deeper stuff too. I wanted it all.”

She feels she got it. Calling the process “Frankenstein-y,” she worked with ski designers and builders, testing prototypes until it clicked. It took months and months of discussion and trials, she said, but then when she got on the final product, she just knew.

“I was like holy s***, what frustrated me about skis has been solved,” she said.

Then, the design. “The actual art, I was like uhhhhhhhh, I don’t know,” she admitted. But she shared a simple vision. “I wanted it to feel like they are part of what all this is; like they were moving with me. I wanted the ski to look like it felt. And I think it does.”

Now, she’s happily skiing on the Parlor Female Ski Bum and living the crazy dream of being a ski designer; one who created a ski for the everyday ski gal.

“The ski is how we talk with the mountain; how we communicate to manage it all,” she said. “It’s pretty cool to have been a part of that.”