Today we're shining the spotlight on Zollie and Gist's E-Commerce Director, Susie! Susie is the driving force behind our marketing and email strategy. With a background in a photography, graphic design, and slew of fiber arts practices including quilting, stitching, weaving, and natural dyeing, she brings a special touch to the team and to our brand experience. 

What’s your name and title? 

I’m Susie and I’m the E-commerce Director at Gist Yarn & Zollie.

What do you do at Zollie and Gist? 

I'm dedicated to crafting an exceptional customer experience when it comes to our website and email newsletter. My goal is for our email newsletter to feel more like a conversation than a constant stream of products & sales, and for our websites to be spaces where makers and weavers want to hang out! 

What are your primary fiber interests? How did you come to love fibers, crafts, or textiles?

Sewing is my first love and I spent a lot of time in high school hand-stitching fully-lined tote bags made from band t-shirts, complete with secret pockets to conceal cameras at concerts. Later I met my friend Chelsea, who got me into embroidery and helped me become more confident on my sewing machine. I went to an art college with the intention of majoring in photography, but ended up finding my people in the Fiber department, where I had the chance to learn about & try many other things like weaving, felting, dyeing, screen-printing, knitting, and crocheting. 

These days I still prefer sewing and stitching. For a while I was making a lot of quilts and working with natural dyes from mushrooms, but currently I’m more likely to make smaller projects that I can finish in a week or two of post-toddler-bedtime crafting sessions. Dolls, doll clothes, bonnets, quilt blocks to sew on clothing, etc.

Tell us a little about your professional background, and how you landed where you are today.

I’ve been working in e-commerce & marketing within the craft industry for about seven years now. I landed at Gist in Fall of 2020 and before that I was the Marketing Director for a quilting brand. I’m pretty sure I found both jobs by wistfully searching job sites for terms like, “sewing”, “yarn”, “knitting”, “craft” (I also occasionally searched “cats”). Prior to finding my way to this industry, I worked as a Marketing Coordinator for a credit union and in a hybrid marketing/graphic design role for the Charles M. Schulz Museum in California (yes Charles Schulz as in Charlie Brown & Snoopy).

What other hobbies or interests do you have?

Photography, mushroom hunting, pizza, chasing my two-year-old around.

What keeps you inspired and connected to your creativity? Do you have any daily creative rituals or practices?

I don’t have a lot of time to make tangible things, but documenting my life in photography is an important daily practice for me.

What’s something you know how to do (and perhaps are fairly good at) that previously seemed impossible?

Baking sourdough bread! My first few loaves were such disasters, but now I can bake on autopilot. Also, french knots! I finally learned how to do one properly from our Beginner Embroidery Kit. 

What’s something you made recently?

I was feeling extra sentimental recently and decided to embroider some of my daughter’s first words (mama, dada, cat, up, and bird) on a scrap of an apron that belonged to my grandmother.

What’s something you’ve done in your role as E-Commerce Director that you’re proud of?

On a purely personal level, I genuinely love this playlist I made for Gist and I’m thrilled that the tradition of making playlists for crafting & weaving lives on with the newer ones Anna has curated for Gist and Zollie.

What’s your go-to comfort movie or TV show to watch while crafting or weaving?

Gilmore Girls! I have watched and rewatched the entire series more times than I can count.

Favorite songs/artists or podcasts?

My favorite podcasts to listen to while sewing or weaving are You’re Wrong About and Beautiful/Anonymous. I think my all-time favorite podcast might be Why Oh Why, though it ended many years ago. As far as music goes, lately I’ve been finding comfort in an old favorite, Diane Cluck.

Favorite fiber artists? 

Maura Ambrose, Morgan Frailey, Mighty Loom

What would your perfect weekend look like?

My toddler sleeps all night in her own bed. Everyone sleeps in. It doesn’t rain. It’s not too hot, not too cold. No one cries, getting out of the house is painless. It’s peak morel or porcini season and we make pizza in our outdoor oven with our finds. Easy bedtime (iykyk), negroni, repeat!