I’m Crystal Waters, the founder, owner and designer for scooter seat covers™ and VermontSewn™.

I was fortunate enough to get my first scooter in 2004 as a gift and fell in love with it – especially with accessorizing it. I’ve been a professional writer and editor for nearly all of my adult life, mostly in the consumer-computer industry. Even though I’d been sewing since I was a kid, making scooter seat covers was quite a career jump for me – a jump I haven’t regretted at all. When I got my first scooter, I made a few scooter seat covers for it because the sun beating down on that vinyl seat made it unbearably hot. I posted photos of the scooter on scooter forums, and after receiving a number of requests for scooter seat covers like mine, I launched scooter seat covers™ and scooterseatcovers.com in January 2005 with two models of covers. I now have shelves overflowing with scooter seats and faux fur, with hundreds of scooter seat cover customers all over the world. You can see many of these products in the gallery.
I’m a one-person shop and make each cover myself, from design to pattern making to cutting to sewing to quality control to shipping. I obsess about attention to detail, and each scooter seat cover is tailor-made to precise specifications with safety as well as aesthetics in mind. I’ve been sewing since my sister Diane showed me how to use a grown-up sewing machine when I was a kid, and, like everyone I’ve ever known who can run a sewing machine, at various times throughout my life I’ve been recruited to make curtains and/or bridesmaid dresses for family weddings.

In late fall 2007, I moved (back) to Vermont from Maryland, and brought my sewing studio with me. I’m proud to be able to bring a growing business back to my home state of Vermont, and have plans to expand and help to grow the local economy.

Since I’ve been back home, I’ve been struck by how many companies there are that create sewn products here. When I was growing up, sewing factories were all over the state, and were a strong part of our local economy. With outsourcing becoming financially desirable for many companies, sewing contractors have become scarce not only in Vermont, but across the US. Companies like the Vermont Teddy Bear Company and Beau Ties of Vermont are the exception, having chosen to keep their production here at home. These and other Vermont companies have inspired me to do my best to do the same.

Other design-entrepreneurs based in Vermont also choose to do all or most of their sewn-products production in Vermont, either doing the sewing themselves, hiring part-time assistance inhouse, or outsourcing to Vermont sewing contractors or sewing cooperatives.

I decided to name my company VermontSewn, not only to describe where I’m from and what I do, but also to highlight other companies and individuals in the state of Vermont that design and sew sewn products, from bow ties to diapers to quilts to teddy bears and everything in between.

When I’m not working on scooter seat covers, I publish a number of web sites, including scoot|pink, scoot|green, Vermont Land and Homes, and a few more.