When Beth Shissler walked into Hannah Kubiak’s life three years ago, Hannah was cruising along, doing her thing, which happened to be making tote bags out of recycled sails. Since 1999, she has spent her days cutting and sewing canvas and Kevlar, and hand-splicing rope to make a durable, continuous handle, just like her ocean-loving dad had taught her years before.

Beth had taken a little time off from her corporate job to help her mother open a gift shop on Isle Au Haut. When she saw Hannah’s bags, she knew they’d be perfect, so she ordered 15 of them.

“Hannah said, ‘What? You want 15 bags?'” Shissler, 39, recalled, laughing.

“Which was unheard of, because I had never sold more than one at a time,” Kubiak, 33, added, as the women sipped iced tea on the deck of the Porthole Restaurant, just steps away from their base of operations on Portland’s Custom House Wharf. “I never really treated it like a business.”

At the time, Shissler was considering a lifestyle change. The long hours and nearly constant traveling of her career as a global account manager for Phillips Electronics had begun to wear on her, and she and her husband were thinking about starting a family.

When she saw Hannah’s totes, she immediately fell in love with them, and soon, the women were discussing a partnership. Beth could bring a business background to the table, while Hannah would provide the creative spirit. In April of 2006, they incorporated Sea Bags.

“This is where the excitement began,” Shissler said. “We went from roughly 60 bags a year to almost 1,000 a month.”

“It’s a whole different gig,” Kubiak added.

Today, the women employ three full-time seamstresses and a handful of part-time employees. In addition, they work with inmates from the Women’s Correctional Institute in Windham.

“All our sails get a second chance,” Shissler said. “We believe people should, too.”

Giving back is something the gals at Sea Bags take seriously. This year, they sponsored a children’s team in the Portland Boat Building Festival. The event benefits the Compass Project, a nonprofit whose mission is using boat building and rowing to help kids learn and grow.

In addition, they also design limited-edition bags as fundraisers. In August, they’ll launch a pink ribbon tote to benefit the Maine Cancer Foundation. In addition, they also sell a premium bag – constructed of racing sails from the boat of New England sailors Andy Horton and Brad Nichol -with the hopes of donating $40,000 toward the duo’s quest for the gold in the Beijing Olympics.

“Part of what we’re doing is supporting things we believe in,” Shissler said.

When people donate sails to Sea Bags, they have the option of receiving a bag in trade, or having a donation made to the Sail Maine Children’s Scholarship Fund in their name.

All of their sails – whether donated, bought or traded, are used. Regardless of their origins, they all have character, not to mention an intriguing history.

“There’s something to be said for carrying around something that’s sailed around the world,” Kubiak said.

Celebrities and stylists would agree. Sea Bags stuffed with Aveda products will be given as party favors at the premiere of Leonardo DiCaprio’s environmental documentary, “The 11th Hour.” Editors from magazines such as Vogue, Elle and Vanity Fair regularly include Sea Bags in their layouts. They’ve graced the pages of the Boston Globe, the Washington Post and The New York Times. Not surprisingly, the company’s customer base has grown from a small following of boaters to include international trendsetters and people with an interest in recycled goods.

For Kubiak, that came naturally. Her father taught her how to make the bags, and because he lives on a sailboat, there were always old ropes and old materials lying around.

“I took off with that,” Kubiak said. “No one had really tapped the whole used sail aspect.”

One drawback, however, is that the biggest part of a sail is blank and, truth be told, a bit boring.

“Our personality does not lend itself to a plain, white bag,” Kubiak said. “A lot of our designs are inspired by the sails we see.”

They accent their bags with vintage sail labels or colorful cutouts from lightweight spinnaker sails. Some are emblazoned with numbers, others with letters, stars, anchors or custom motifs developed by head designer Stephanie Moran, a 27-year-old Fashion Institute of Technology grad.

On a recent afternoon in Sea Bags’ small, sunlit office, Moran quickly stitched the base of a bag. Jess Di Biase, 21, stood at a long table and cut a sail with pinking shears to make tags. Normally, she’s in charge of implementing design concepts.

Hannah and Beth had returned from the Porthole, and Hannah grabbed a bag, threaded a rope through the pre-sewn channels, and got to work splicing together the ends of the handle. Beth clicked away on her keyboard, checking orders online. At a table near the door, smoke rose in the air as Lynn Savage, Hannah’s childhood friend from Kennebunkport, cut rope with a hot knife.

“Hannah, I always like your splices,” Savage said. “They’re like clockwork.”

Moran smiled as she pointed to a grommet in the middle of the bag she was stitching.

“It’s one of the things we love,” she said.

“It’s an old reefing point,” Kubiak explained.

The ocean – and all things sailing – flows through the veins of everyone who works at Sea Bags. Though Kubiak and Shissler plan to expand their business, they’re staying on the wharf. In two weeks, they’ll move across the street into a new office and retail space.

But on this warm afternoon, sails covered nearly every unused surface and were stacked almost ceiling-high on a loft. Some come from windjammers, others from racing boats. One sail in their possession was even rumored to be from E.B. White’s boat.

“We can find a use for anything,” Kubiak said.

“We use all the sails in a variety of ways,” Shissler added, “but we love them all.”

Sea Bags are available at Jane Alden in Lincolnville, The Sea Urchin on Isle Au Haut, Old Red Antiques in Southwest Harbor, The Cherished Home in Belfast, The Daily Grind in Ellsworth and online at www.seabags.com.