ABOUT

Good Water and Co. began as the brain child of Sami and morphed into a daughter-mother adventure. Sami has had a knack for sewing interesting colors and patterns together to make something new ever since she discovered her mom’s fabric stash. This led to her getting her first vintage child’s sewing machine. She has since added to that collection with a number of Singer Featherweight and Wilcox and Gibbs machines. Her love of sewing is matched only by her passion for vintage needlework. She is a self taught textile artist, and is currently enrolled in the certificate program through The Royal School of Needlework in the UK.

Sami’s passion for sustainability, hand work and vintage textiles has led her to create unique and funky totes, pouches and accessories for fiber art enthusiasts. In keeping with the traditions of the arts and crafts movement, Sami is always striving to create pieces that add joy and color to everyday life using simple patterns inspired by vintage designs and brought to life using traditional techniques. Her embroidery designs are inspired by needlework patterns from vintage fashion magazines from the late 1800’s to the 1940’s and the world around us.

Sami’s designs transform fabrics into bags and totes and are an antidote to mass production, consumerism and fast fashion. The designs rely on simple clean designs that are visually interesting. Her use of simple geometric designs ensures little or no cloth is on the cutting room floor and fabric remnants can be repurposed. They are meant for everyday use and aimed at makers looking for something unique, while at the same time a sustainable and ethical approach to fashion. Her timeless designs are meant to transcend fleeting trends. Each bag is cut and sewn one at a time. Once sewn, the bags are then hand-embroidered or appliquéd to give them a bold, energetic and contemporary feel. Each of our bags has a unique character and no two are exactly alike.

Sami’s passion for traditional methods and historically techniques led her to begin naturally dyeing the linen used in the bags. Her appreciation for vintage fabrics and haberdashery can be seen in many of her bags. As a small business, we are moving away from materials used by many other conventional bag makers and are moving toward traditional alternatives. The closures we choose are often upcycled or vintage buttons. The zippers and hardware we use can aways be repurposed. Our packaging is biodegradable. The felt we use on some of our bags is genuine wool felt and much of our embroidery floss is naturally dyed. We source our waxed canvas from Halley Stevensons, who have pioneered waxed cotton and weatherproofed fabrics since 1864 and who pride themselves on “responsibly sourced cotton and low impact manufacturing.” The waxes they use are fully biodegradable and inflict minimal environmental impact. The wool fabric comes from fiber mills in Ireland and Scotland that share Sami’s core beliefs.

You can usually find Sami in the workshop working on a new design, playing with fabric combinations, dyeing linen or, embroidering our designs. She always has the help of one or more of our adopted shelter pets! The shelves of our workshop are filled with fabrics, wool felt, upcycled trims and buttons, vintage quilt books, eighteen hundred vintage fashion and needlework magazines, botanical inks, stamps, stencils and interesting items we come across to add uniqueness to our bags. The design wall is covered with sticky notes of new ideas. When the weather is nice, you can find Sami on the porch often lost in the rhythm of hand stitching. If you happen to drive by on a nice day, you might even see some of our freshly dyed linen blowing in the wind to dry or tending our dye garden.

When not working on designs or stitching, you will find her engrossed in writings on material culture, including the tension between making and consuming in the early 20th century. She has previously taught a class on stitching and embroidering historical pockets at the Shenandoah Fiber Festival and was published in the Winter 2023 edition of Piecework Magazine.

We are regularly asked how we got the name Good Water&Co. The answer is simple: Sami has an affinity for 1930s aesthetics. Hobo code is a big part of that time. She liked the symbol for good water, and alas it became our logo and the name of her company.