about gosadi

All of us at team gosadi understand and love the fiber industry. Through our work with yarn manufacturers, magazines, brands of all sizes and independent designers, we like to think that we understand the pain and pressure points in these spaces better than most. We’re equipped and energized to solve problems and simplify processes, providing a tool you can use on your path to success!

Our story

From Michele:

I first had the idea for gosadi about seven years ago, even pitching it to potential investors. At that time, it didn't move forward, so my idea was placed on the back burner, (but not forgotten) as I continued building my other fiber-related businesses.

Fast forward to January 2022, when Hilary was driving me home after taking care of me after an outpatient medical procedure. What was just casual conversation between us turned into a deeper discussion about frustrations and dreams in the fiber industry. I mentioned my idea for gosadi and almost immediately, Hilary responded with "OMG that is brilliant! I had a similar idea several years ago, but just didn't even know where to begin.”

I said “Right? So should we do this together?”

We both realized in that moment that each of us had a significant piece of the puzzle that the other was missing, and decided that it needed to happen.

From Hilary:

Ok, let’s back up here for a second. We are dear friends now, but it didn’t start that way. We have worked together in various capacities and collaborated together over the last 5 years. We were business colleagues, but our friendship took longer to develop. Our business relationship, however, is well-tested. We have had those honest, frank moments and it only strengthened our partnership and ultimately lead to a really meaningful friendship. If there was anyone with whom I wanted to embark on this journey, it was Michele. We both knew our friendship could not only survive a business venture, but help it thrive as well.

Naturally, after this significant conversation happened, we wasted no time. We knew we were going to need start-up capital and I told Michele I knew someone who would be interested. Michele pitched it less than a week later, and just like that, the deal was closed, and it was time to bring the concept to life.

From both of us:

This brings us to gosadi, co-founded by us, Michele & Hilary. The joke is that "Michele is the whole C Suite" because she handles the day-to-day, oversees the tech build, and she is the "managing partner" on paper. Hilary oversees branding, our company voice and is heavily involved in the UX design.

Our skills and what we each bring to the table are so complementary that we are constantly reminding each other, “damn, we are a good team!” Together, we are proud to be building this product and company exactly the way we both feel a company should be.

Michele Costa
Co-founder

A NYC girl through and through, Michele has loved all things yarn-related since before she can even remember. As a child, she was inspired by her grandparents who, as immigrants, instilled in her a love for working hard and bringing dreams to reality.

After a successful career in touring & television production, Michele turned her attention to her love of fiber, launching 144 Stitches and the Stitch & Hustle blog. In 2017, Michele launched Stitch Up Events, promoting diversity and inclusion in the fiber arts community. Stitch Up Chicago has become a well-attended and favorite event among many in the fiber community, and Michele has begun expanding the event to other cities, including her hometown NYC.

Stitch Up Chicago is what brought Michele to Nina Chicago, where the original owner sponsored the first year’s event. When the second year’s event rolled around, Hilary was the owner. After collaborating successfully with Nina Chicago for years, Michele began working with Hilary on other projects and they became friends in addition to business colleagues.

In 2022 Michele co-founded gosadi with Hilary to help independent designers and artists streamline e-commerce management and increase pattern sales.

Hilary Cerbin
Co-founder

Born in Memphis, but raised in the Chicago suburbs, Hilary has  been engaged in music and creative arts her entire life. After years of piano study and French horn performance through college, she realized the musical stage wasn’t for her and transitioned to the visual arts. Hilary then moved to Chicago proper, where she obtained a second degree in graphic design. As Hilary likes to say, she was “trying to figure out her life” while doing some freelance work, networking, working retail, and still taking on a few performance gigs.

One day, a friend convinced Hilary she should learn to knit. After becoming immediately obsessed, Hilary began designing her own knitwear patterns under the name Hilary Hues and sought out a part-time position at Nina, her favorite Chicago LYS. She never left, and nearly 10 years after having walked into Nina’s doors for the first time, Hilary became the new owner of Nina Chicago in 2017.

While co-founding gosadi, Hilary still owns and operates Nina Chicago which has relocated and become a thriving creative hot spot for Chicago area fiber artists and sewists. Hilary splits her time between Nina Chicago and making sure gosadi looks good, overseeing the branding and design elements alongside Michele.

Samantha Brunson
Head of marketing & designer relations

Being the daughter of a playwright meant that storytelling was always in Samantha's blood. She graduated from The School of The Art Institute of Chicago (SAIC) where she first fell in love with handmade crafts, particularly fiber arts. After school, she went on to work in the fashion industry at companies such as Donna Karan, Maggy London, and Bliss Lau.

For close to ten years, Samantha worked as a knitwear sample maker, creating intricate handmade knitwear and crochet for couture and ready-to-wear runway shows. Samantha helped designers channel their ideas and tell a cohesive story through their collections. 

A self-proclaimed elderly millennial, Samantha was always looking for new ways to share her love of crafting and storytelling with the world. This led her to create Bobble Club House, a crafting blog that chronicles the creative community with stories from a diverse group of makers. She went on to spend years working as a social media manager for a major yarn manufacturer. It was this work that led her to become the Founder of Yes & Social LLC, her social media management and consulting company. She enjoys using her love and knowledge of all things marketing to help brands develop their voice and marketing strategies.

Samantha (who met our co-founder Michele in 2018 on Worldwide Knit in Public Day in Bryant Park in NYC, through a mutual friend who was a pattern tester for Stitch & Hustle), is excited to join the team from its beginning. She’s looking forward to applying both her marketing and fiber arts expertise to bring gosadi to the designer community.

Katrina Walser
Consulting Product Manager

As an eight year old living in Sydney, Australia, two things happened to Kat - her dad taught her how to program, and her mum (also a software engineer) taught her how to knit. While she didn’t realize it at the time, both things more or less set off the trajectory for the rest of her life.

After studying a degree in Computer Science (where she furiously knit whenever she wasn’t coding), Kat began working at Atlassian in Sydney, then moved to Brooklyn to work at Etsy’s HQ. While there, she took her vaguely formed idea about having a knitting business and turned it into a full-blown side hustle - and Oliphant Kat was born.

A few years and one baby later, it felt like time to move home to Sydney, which was the perfect opportunity to expand Oliphant Kat. Since early 2020 she’s been working full time as a pattern designer, knitting teacher and tech editor.

While Kat feels more than lucky to have had a few years to focus solely on knitting, when Michele (who she’d met through a knitting event in NYC in 2017) asked if she wanted to jump on board to help build out gosadi, it seemed like a great chance to bring her two passions back together. She’s very excited to apply both her technical and knitting expertise to bring gosadi to the designer community.