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 and got her first child’s sewing machine. She has since added a number of working Singer Featherweight and Wilcox and Gibbs sewing 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.

Born and raised in the lower Hudson Valley, a train’s ride from New York City, Sami moved to Central Pennsylvania for college where her passion for sustainability, hand work and vintage textiles only grew. 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. Each of her pieces is handmade and therefore unique and will vary. Her embroidery designs are inspired by covers of vintage magazines and needlework patterns from vintage magazines from the late 1800’s to the 1940’s.

Sami have moved toward using traditional material and sustainable alternatives such as linen and wool, and away from commercial manufactured printed cotton fabric. The fabric used is naturally dye fabric by hand in small batches, creating plant dyed colors using historical techniques and dyestuffs to create a range of colors from the most lightfast and color fast plant dyes that have stood the test of time. The linen is GOT certified, and woven on vintage looms at Tuscarora Mills in Pennsylvania. The closures are often upcycled or vintage buttons. The zippers and hardware can be repurposed. Most of the embroidery floss is naturally dyed. The waxed canvas used is 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.

Sami’s designs transform fabrics into 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 work room floor and fabric remnants can be repurposed. Her timeless designs and traditional materials are meant to transcend fleeting trends. Although each bag is a statement piece, having its own unique character, they are intended for everyday use. All of the embroidery and appliqué is done by hand which means each bag is slightly different and thus one of a kind.

You can usually find Sami in the workshop working on a new design, playing with fabric combinations, dyeing linen or, embroidering designs. She always has the help of one or more of our adopted shelter pets! The shelves of her workshop are crammed recycled and vintage textile, found objects, upcycled trims and buttons, vintage books, eighteen hundred vintage fashion and needlework magazines, botanical inks, hand carved stamps, 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.