Engineer-turned-seamstress launches sewing club for retired women

Cherisse Moe

Tues­day morn­ings at Tiffi­ni’s Re­tiree’s Sewing Club al­ways serve up a healthy dose of laugh­ter, stitch­ing, and ca­ma­raderie. With on­ly four seats avail­able, the at­mos­phere in her Curepe stu­dio is in­ti­mate, en­sur­ing that no one gets lost while mas­ter­ing a bob­bin or a back­stitch. If a stu­dent miss­es a step or for­gets an in­struc­tion, they jok­ing­ly an­nounce they are head­ed to the “naughty cor­ner”, on­ly to have a friend shout that they’ll be join­ing them.

Their ded­i­ca­tion comes through in every class. Tiffi­ni re­cent­ly got a ran­dom call from one of her stu­dents: “Tiff, if I break a nee­dle, how ex­act­ly do I change it?” Af­ter walk­ing her through the fix, Tiffi­ni asked the ob­vi­ous ques­tion: “So, how did you break it?”

“She just laughed and said, ‘I’ll show you next class!’” Tiffi­ni re­calls. “When she walked in, I was floored. In just one month, she had tack­led a gor­geous zip­pered tote bag, com­plete with in­side pock­ets and card slots. It’s mo­ments like those that make this ini­tia­tive so spe­cial.”

The ses­sions are de­signed for women aged 50 and old­er who have spent their lives work­ing and car­ing for oth­ers, of­ten putting their own in­ter­ests on the back burn­er. “Re­tire­ment is the per­fect sea­son to fi­nal­ly in­vest in your­self, and I’m ho­n­oured to pro­vide a space where these tal­ent­ed women can learn a new skill while build­ing last­ing friend­ships with like-mind­ed peers.”

The 35-year-old dig­i­tal course cre­ator was ex­per­i­ment­ing with fab­rics and de­signs be­fore she even dreamed of open­ing her own stu­dio. “I re­mem­ber look­ing at clothes and think­ing, ‘I can def­i­nite­ly make this my­self,’” she says. Her mom saw that cu­rios­i­ty ear­ly on and bought Tiffi­ni her very first sewing ma­chine, “which was the start of this in­cred­i­ble jour­ney.” How­ev­er, life as a full-time sewing ed­u­ca­tor on­ly be­came a re­al­i­ty in 2024 fol­low­ing a sud­den pro­fes­sion­al redi­rec­tion. An elec­tri­cal en­gi­neer by pro­fes­sion, she spent much of her ca­reer fol­low­ing a script so­ci­ety hand­ed her: go to school, be­come an en­gi­neer, and climb the lad­der of suc­cess. She worked hard to be the per­fect em­ploy­ee, but re­alised en­gi­neer­ing was not al­ways as lu­cra­tive as she had as­sumed, and sewing be­came her fi­nan­cial safe­ty net. For years, she would make ex­tra mon­ey on the side de­sign­ing and cre­at­ing out­fits for friends and clients.

When an en­gi­neer­ing job end­ed abrupt­ly, six months in, she had to make a de­ci­sion. “I felt like a rug was pulled out be­low me as my man­ag­er at the time def­i­nite­ly made me feel blind­sided. I was an­gry, dis­ap­point­ed, and com­plete­ly shak­en,” Tiffi­ni re­calls. When her at­tempts to re­turn to the cor­po­rate world were met with si­lence, she turned to her faith. “I found my­self on my knees ask­ing God, ‘What now?’ And that’s when it clicked. When I fi­nal­ly stopped cling­ing to what I thought my life should look like, I made room for the vi­sion God was try­ing to show me.”

Now a full-time seam­stress, her class­es help be­gin­ners re­alise their own goals. She guides them through us­ing a sewing ma­chine, tak­ing mea­sure­ments, and draft­ing pat­terns. Over three months, her stu­dents can cre­ate a straight skirt, a gath­ered skirt, and a top with­out su­per­vi­sion. She has al­so in­te­grat­ed a mod­ern spin in­to the craft, pro­vid­ing tech­nique videos to sup­port the learn­ing process. It is easy to use and “gives my ladies ex­tra re­sources that they can re­fer back to,” she says.

Tiffi­ni al­so works with neu­ro­di­ver­gent stu­dents at a lo­cal school, where she de­vel­oped a “skills for life” course for autis­tic chil­dren. The pro­gramme builds in­de­pen­dence and em­pow­er­ment through prac­ti­cal tasks like sewing on a but­ton or fix­ing a hem. “In this en­vi­ron­ment, there is no one-size-fits-all,” she points out. “Every child has unique ca­pa­bil­i­ties, and my job is to meet them ex­act­ly where they are.”

To­day, she’s con­fi­dent she is where she needs to be. Re­cent part­ner­ships with cor­po­rate Trinidad have val­i­dat­ed her busi­ness mod­el, which of­fers every­thing from in-per­son ses­sions to self-paced on­line cours­es.

In­ter­est­ed in join­ing her Re­tiree’s Sewing Club? Ses­sions op­er­ate on a flexi-start ba­sis as spots be­come avail­able. Reg­is­tra­tion is han­dled through her web­site at cu­pid­de­sign­stt.com.

Come pre­pared for ed­u­ca­tion, gen­uine bonds, and a whole lot of fun!