Daily Inspiration: Meet Tish Gance

Today we’d like to introduce you to Tish Gance.

Alright, so thank you so much for sharing your story and insight with our readers. To kick things off, can you tell us a bit about how you got started?
In fall of 2012, I had a special needs kitty named Vega. She needed to have a very expensive operation to fix a problem with her liver, and the amazing folks us at CSU weren’t sure if she’d survive the procedure. Well, we went ahead and did it, and it worked! But now I needed to find a way to pay for the procedure.

At the time I was working two different jobs, in hopes to change careers. One of those involved working at an art gallery part time. I didn’t want to get a 3rd job, so I started looking at what I could do to hustle a side gig for some extra dough. I learned to sew when I was 8 years old and have done it ever since, so why not teach lessons?

I reached out and talked to a few of the local sewing shops and places that offered classes, but either they didn’t pay well or wanted me to teach a very narrow approach to sewing. The art dealer I was working with said I could use his gallery on Sundays since it was closed, so I started HISS studio.

Now that many years have passed, HISS studio has a solid reputation as one of the premier sewing class offerings in Denver. We moved out of the art gallery, into a vintage 1972 Winnebago, then into an office in Lowry, then into another office in Lakewood…and now we have a wonderful home in Old Littleton.

Despite many interesting situations like the cootie in 2020, various offices and buildings being sold forcing us to move, and the closing of Joann’s for “easy” supplies, we are still here and thriving! And we plan on being here many years to come to spread the love of sewing!

HISS stands for Happiness is Simple Sewing, and that is what we strive for! Folks get freaked out about care and feeding of their sewing machines, so we’re here to help make it easy and fun. Because sewing is something ANYONE can do with a little bit of guidance!

Alright, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
First struggle – The art dealer had decided he was going to sell his gallery, and that meant I needed a new space. Our classes are very reasonably priced, so we can’t really afford a large space with all the trimming and a big rent payment. So we went and got ourselves a 1972 Winnebago Cheiftain RV! It had all the vintage greatness with some nice modifications and ran great! Student were excited!

Second struggle – While students said they loved the “Sewbago”, and it gained a lot of attention, our class sign ups kept dwindling. Also, the insurance, gas, extra prep time to get it warm in the winter, driving in bad weather to locations, and storage all were a LOT of work. I was fortunate enough taht an extended family member had an office space I could use, so I sadly I sold the Sewbago, but my class signups went crazy! We were back in business!

Third struggle—The Cootie. I refuse to call it COVID, it sounds so ominous (which it was, but I don’t want to relive that). Students were really great during this period, many willing to do virtual class offerings, many didn’t ask for refunds when we were forced to cancel classes. Because of our small, 3 person class size and the size of our office space, we were able to get back to teaching much faster than other businesses were able to open. And folks LOVED having something to do when the rest of the world was shut down!

The fourth struggle—offices being sold. First, the Lowry location was sold, but I had a lot of notice and was able to move to the sister office in Lakewood owned by the extended family. Then, 3 years later (summer of 2025) I was informed the entire office building was sold, and I had to find a new place in two weeks to move to! YIKES!!!!

We had a backup plan to share a space with another business in Old Littleton, but their building was also being sold at the same time, so they were losing their space too! Backup plan fail!

I think the sewing gods decided to help me out, because I was able to find an amazing office complex that had exactly the space I needed, 5 minutes from my house, with storage for the machines, ironing board, etc. And all for a very reasonable rate! The porperty management loves to help small businesses and enjoys having a wide variety of offerings to draw in new folks, so it’s a perfect match. We’ve been at our new location in Old Littleton for two months now, and we love it!

Alright, so let’s switch gears a bit and talk business. What should we know about your work?
Our classes are wildly different than most of the offerings out there to learn to sew. Most places have a set kit, you make an item in a “follow the leader” type situation, and at the end of a very long class, you are supposed to know how to sew.

The problem with this method is there’s just too much to learn! Sewing is a skill like woodworking, metalworking, stained glass, etc, so it needs to be taught as such! We start out with all the basics of construction while also getting you comfortable using your machine. We do small steps and build on those until things become muscle memory and you feel confident in how to use your machine.

Then, we move into how to actually assemble and make things from patterns, which is perfect for most folks. Patterns are relatively inexpensive, and there are so many options that almost anyone can find something they love to make! We start out with tried and true basic patterns and are here for students that want to go advanced with fancy techniques.

We even have private lessons if there’s something special folks want to do!

How do you think about happiness?
The cats of the studio. We have a few, and though Vega has passed, she made it to 11 3/4 years old, when they didn’t think she’d live past 3. She often came and hung out for classes, and students loved meeting her.

We have the cats “teach” different aspects of our classes, by making appearances in our slides with helpful tips. We also try and give back to our local shelters with classes to make socialization bags, donations, and more!

Contact Info:

• Website: https://HISSstudio.com
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/HissStudio/
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCXLdOEA2rQ0KooLxrWeBmrg

Image Credits
Photos by the cat staff