Today is April 7, 2022 and I had a Grand Re-Opening for my Sewing School in Palm Desert, CA about a month ago on March 11, 2022. The celebration was to toast moving into a new studio space, which is more than twice as big as my old studio, and to kick off the opening of a brand new retail section of my small business.

Things have been non-stop ever since! But I want to take a few moment to reflect on where I started with this little sewing biz, take a walk down memory lane, and thank everyone for helping me on this journey of turning my passion into my career.

I've been sewing since I was 12, but didn't really get back into it big time until my daughter, Naomi, was born in 2001. I made her a quilt—my very first—in this San Mateo Eichler bedroom turned office/sewing room when she was 1. After I made that first quilt, I couldn't stop sewing and this room saw about 500 more quilts made, plus lot of other sewn things during the time it was my sewing space.


I worked outside the home, but around 2007-2008 I started regularly making costumes for neighbors and opened up an Etsy Shop as a side hustle. It quickly became obvious that this little tiny room was not cutting it. Literally! I didn't even have a space for a cutting table. We had a bigger room in our converted garage that was my husband, Ben's, music room and office. By some miracle (and not by my constant piles of mess and bemoaning AT ALL), my husband, Ben, graciously offered to switch rooms with me. So I ran with machine in hand as quickly as I could and moved right in before he changed his mind.

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In November 2013, after years of volunteering in my kids classrooms and loving it, I decided I wanted to share my joy of sewing to a new generation of sewists. I happily chucked my 9-5 job and opened up a sewing school for kids. Like any self-respecting Silicon Valley start up we began in a garage. I started teaching with 4 machines, two of which my parents purchased for me to help get things up and running. We lost lots of needles and pins in the fabulous orange shag carpet you see here. About a year later I added two more machines so we could squeeze 6 kiddos in the space for each class. It was tight! But there was lots of creativity happening in that garage.

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In 2016 I made an official business-y decision to get a commercial space because we were bursting at the seams at home. I noticed my dentist had a small 300 square foot office available in his building, which he also owned. It was perfect....I could walk to work, and know my landlord was a good guy! We moved into our big girl commercial space and got a sign and everything!

It was a corner office that was a little bigger than the garage and had wrap around windows so we could watch deer playing on the hills across the road.

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First commercial studio for TrishTacSew

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In 2019, with both our kids finished or heading to college, Ben and I decided to escape the crowd and cost of living in the Bay Area and head to the desert. We moved to Palm Springs and I was excited to bring sewing to SoCal kids. I found another commercial space and went from 300 sq feet to 808 square feet for LESS than I was paying for in the Bay Area (that place is crazy insane expensive) and felt like I was living in luxury. It had room for 6 machines, a sitting area for parents, a private office for me, a private office for Ben AND storage! Luxury I tell ya.

In January 2020, my parents flew into town, both my kids were in town, and I had a Grand Opening to invite Coachella Valley to come sew! Then...covid hit in February and basically shut everyone down for 2 years. Sad face. Skip ahead to September 2021 and I opened my doors again to kiddos. However, here in the desert, there are so many adults who also want to learn. So my adult students started filling up the seats and once again, I found that 800 square feet wasn't working while teaching adults. I NEEDED MORE ROOM!

Palm Desert Grand Opening Jan 2020

TrishTacSew Studio 2020