Better Living Through Sewing

Took the 3 hour Intro to the Machine class and it was awesome. I was nervous & knew basically nothing about seeing. Diana was so patient, warm & her teaching style is very accessible. I learned all about my machine and don't feel intimidated by it anymore. Highly recommend her classes!
May 23rd, 2020

I had a great time in this class! I've been experimenting with sewing and learning mainly through youtube videos.  I've been having trouble sewing in a straight line. I decided to take a class to get a refresher and wowee, this was sooo helpful! She taught a bunch of helpful techniques: went through how to remove your footer, your needle, curved lines, corner lines, straight lines, etc. and taught me so much about my machine.  I will definitely be going back (although not for some time due to personal responsibilities I need to take care of first). I highly recommend her for folks who are new to sewing in the bay area.  Although there are plenty of different sewing classes nearby, I believe this one is fairly priced.
May 14th, 2019

Diana came over and provided one on one serger lesson for me. She was really patient and showed me the very basics of getting going with my serger - how to thread, some interesting tools and tricks specific to my machine - things I need to know to even begin to play around with this complicated AF machine. Full confession: this is a second review, the first one was immediately after taking a class and I was extremely disappointed - I felt like the class wasn't organized or efficient with time and I left not knowing anything more than when I started. But Diana reached out to me directly and came to my house and provided 1.5hr personal lesson, which I tremendously appreciated. After talking with her, it sounds like that class was really challenging for many reasons and I respect that there are situations out of your control, like the class dynamic and when people show up with weird machines you're not familiar with. I greatly appreciated her reaching out to me - I'm so used to getting burnt by things like that, that it didn't even occur to me to reach out about the negative experience! At the end of the day, all I wanted was to be able to load the d*mn machine and to serge a corner. That being said, I realized that moving forward, spending the extra $$ for a one on one might be a better choice for me in the future - with a baby, a full-time job and often very specific needs/questions re: sewing/serging, this hour+ together was way more helpful and manageable than a class. Ultimately, I found Diana to be very approachable, easy to work with, and very patient.
Feb 24th, 2019

I have taken two classes from Diana. When I first got my sewing machine I went and took the basics class to better understand it. About a year later I took the seeing with patterns 101 class and I was very happy with the results. Diana sends you an email with suggestions before the class, but since I already had a project in mind, I went with what I wanted anyway, knowing it'd be about more time consuming. It's true that there were people at different levels in the class, and Diana often had to move through the space helping here and there, but I didn't find I was waiting with nothing to do too often. I plan on taking more classes here.
Jan 23rd, 2019

I am a beginner and took a class that went over different seams like french seam, under stitching, flat fell, etc. and found Diana to be very patient. Her style of teaching is laid back and easy for a beginner to follow and understand. She demonstrated the process for the different seams and the specifics like why we might use them then let us try our hand at them on our own machines. The class length was just the right amount of time as well to get the course material done but also time for questions. I also picked up some sewing tips like a quick fix to a jam and pressing techniques.Prior to class she was great with communication via email and included parking information as well as materials list. I really appreciated the class, the instruction style and highly recommend her to others.
Mar 7th, 2018