Gather brings the practical arts to Main Street
A new women-owned business in downtown focuses on gardening, fermenting and preserving, cooking and fiber arts
Jen Koelemeijer has been dreaming about creating a store like Gather for a long time.
“This has been in my head for 10 years,” said Koelemeijer, a former banker and private school financial officer (and now a member of Sebastopol’s Planning Commission).
She and her business partner, Erin Hillmer, stood together in their gorgeous new store on Main Street, which is located in the space where People’s Music used to be. The space has been completely remade: it’s bright and spacious with pale walls, high ceilings and simple but elegant displays of gardening, canning and fermentation tools, as well as cookware and beautiful skeins of yarn.
Their website describes Gather as “A place for makers, doers, and lifelong learners.”
Hillmer explained what the store is all about: “We are a retail and class space focused on the practical arts. We have four pillars right now that we’re focusing on, which are gardening; then canning, preserving, and fermenting your harvest; then cooking-at-home wares; and then we have a fiber art section, so we have yarn and embroidery kits.”
“Our whole ethos with this is teaching people to be a little more self-sufficient and learning how to do these things yourself. We consider these little radical acts,” Hillmer said.
The focus here is on exquisite, beautiful tools for self-sufficiency that will last a lifetime.
In addition to selling tools for gardening, preserving, cooking and knitting, they plan to offer classes. “We’re having classes in all of them,” Hillmer said, “and it’s really to create community, so people come together, do these things together, and meet other folks who enjoy the same hobbies and to continue this lifelong learning.”
For Hillmer, the store is in many ways about anchoring her to her community.
“I was very tired of working in corporate America to be quite honest, and was really wanting to find something that would get me more embedded in the community I live in,” she said. “We’re both raising our kids here. We both live in Sebastopol, and I didn’t love working for a company that felt removed, and I’ve always secretly wanted to open a yarn shop.”
Hillmer and Koelemeijer met each other when their children were in second grade (they’re now sophomores in high school). They have been talking about starting a business together for several years. When Yarnitudes closed in 2022, they considered buying that business. But Koelemeijer had been dreaming about opening a different kind of store with a broader array of offerings.
Gather reflects the interests of the owners. Hillmer’s heart is in the fiber arts section, while Koelemeijer is more focused on gardening, preserving and cooking.
Koelemeijer said Gather is the store she has been dreaming about for years.
“I’ve been trying to bring it together and make it the right thing in the right place at the right time, and then it just kind of all came together,” Koelemeijer said. “After COVID and leaving education, I needed to find my next thing and this kind of just bloomed. And then Erin came along, and we were just the perfect collaboration. She has all the marketing, branding and design experience, and I have the business fundamentals and experience running a business.”
Gather is hosting a Grand Opening party on Saturday, May 3, from 4–8 pm, and you are invited. Find out more about the store at gathersebastopol.com
Lovely space with room for classes—excited to see this store in Sebastopol!
Good luck! Sounds like a sweet endeavor.