About Teresa Sigmon
Hello! Thanks SEW much for wanting to more about me, my online sewing school and all that my company Sew Like A Pro™ offers.
I’m a dressmaker and sewing instructor, a retired professional Dancesport competitor and ballroom dance instructor, as well as a rather dreadful hobby ice skater.
I love teaching, hiking, kayaking, animals, archery, my family and friends. While spontaneity, honesty, laughter and being outdoors feeds my soul.
I began my dressmaking company, Seams Sensational, in 1993. I created one-of-a-kind ballroom dance costumes for clients all over North America, from beginning students to U.S. Champions.
As the decades passed, I realized that making women's competition costumes is about much more than fabric and rhinestones; it is about helping women look and feel beautiful so they are happier, more confident and empowered by their dress choices and their femininity.
Being in front of the camera teaching about women's dance and skate costumes is the most natural thing I have ever done.
Every minute is sew much fun.
On March 26, 2014, the idea for a comprehensive dance and skate dressmaker school, Sew Like A Pro™, popped into my head while I sat at the sewing machine making a ballroom dress for a client.
Really, the idea was more like a voice saying "teach them to make their own."
When I realized what the voice meant, I jumped from my sewing machine and began jumping and down fist pumping the air, running in circles around my apartment like dogs do when they're super excited.
Seriously. It was an awesome moment.
A week later, I had purchased studio lights, two cameras and began filming my first-ever video blog with a ballroom dancer for whom I was making a competition dress.
I have been a feverish, mostly-one-woman show ever since.
Be sure to check out my signature programs: Ballroom Dressmaker School and the Latin & Skate Dance Dressmaker School.
P.S. I would love to have proper staff so I can grow Sew Like A Pro™ faster and more efficiently.
Contact me if you're interested in what I offer and can contribute with video editing, blog writing, new website, technology updates, social media content and scheduling. Pay or barter is great for me. teresa@seamssensational.com
As of this writing, there are over 300 Sew Like A Pro™ dressmaker school members in twenty countries.
Trust me when I say I had to learn a lot of new skills to create, promote and maintain the world’s first (and only) interactive, online sewing school for making women's dance and skate dresses!
I think learning how to do everything required for Sew Like A Pro™ is equal to learning how to make a custom dance or skate dress when you barely know how to sew.
That is to say, it's not easy, and you may temporarily lose your sanity.
However, once complete there is nothing like the pride of accomplishment!
Teresa Sigmon models a dress made by Sew Like A Pro™ member, Sherri Hansen, seen in the middle of the image.
I love that I have decades of personal experience to offer a full arsenal of sewing training to help as many dancing, skating sewists as possible!
In 2022 I created the Dressmaker Business Academy. This business coaching program offers what I believe is the world's only business coaching specifically for those who earn money sewing dance and skate dresses, theater costumes, wedding dresses ... and really anything custom-made by a small sewing business.
2023 was the first year for the Fabulous Fitting Techniques Course. I created this course to provide dressmaking training on how to work with, and fit, stretch fabrics for dance and skate costumes.
The Fitting Techniques Course is perfect for those who sew costumes for children and adults of any age. It is also ideal for folks who want a "summer school" on working with stretch fabrics .... rather than a "dressmaker degree" found in the university-caliber Latin & Skate Dance Dressmaker School and the Ballroom Dressmaker School.
While all the sewing videos were recorded several years ago, Zoom and high speed internet are my best friends for teaching LIVE anytime, anywhere!
In 2013, before I got the message to create Sew Like A Pro™, I invested a lot of time and money into creating a life awareness course so I could be a life coach.
To beta test my new course "Priorities, Goals and Intentions", I ran an online version to a small group of men and women, and taught the course live at my local women’s prison.
After my own life struggles and revelations, I really enjoy inspiring women to discover who they are, who they want to be and how to bridge that gap ®.
While "Priorities, Goals and Intentions" sits collecting dust on my hard drive, I get to teach similar topics when I host extended live workshops and design challenges.
And most recently in 2026, Goodness For You is the re-birth of me working with women in a new way, only loosely related to sewing.
When I am not sitting in front of my laptop running the school, I escape into nature.
I like volunteering with local, state and federal agencies to help improve the world in which we live. My mom and I pulled invasive weeds in Glen Canyon and twice picked up trash on Lake Powell. I also pick up trash as I walk in the woods or on the beach.
Me, my mom, and others volunteering for Trash Trackers' on Lake Powell Arizona
I worked my first fire support in California in 2017. I did laundry for fire fighters and other personnel at “fire camp”.
It’s an amazing experience that allows me to take a break from my laptop and be around other people in a supportive environment. I still enjoy working fire support on occasion.
With my former husband's patience and assistance, I rescued or fostered thirty-five cats and five dogs.
A few of them became our companions for the duration of their lives. However, most of them lived with us for 10-12 weeks while I got them healthy, spayed or neutered. Then, I found them fur-ever homes.
When I make my $20 millions, I want to set up a few traveling spay-neuter clinics to help erradicate homeless and unwanted cats and dogs.
I also want to introduce flower essences into every animal shelter in the country so the critters (and the people) can have an easier transition from homeless to homed.
Teresa holds her adventure cat, Sophie Fiona, at sunrise on Mt. St. Helens in Washington.
In March 2018, my extraordinary travel cat, Sophie Fiona, and I began a road trip I thought would last only a few months.
Years later, I still have most of my belongings in storage and I have begun calling myself an "accidental digital nomad".
Thank goodness I upgraded from a budget-size car to my cozy and feminine camper van!
Click here to learn a wee bit more about my crazy long road trip and how I became a digital nomad.
Traveling is a great way to promote Sew Like A Pro™, meet my sewing school members and explore this beautiful planet.
Thanks to free accommodation via Trusted Housesitters, I twice pet-sat my way around Scotland and England, for 3-4 months each time! New Zealand and Australia may be up next.
Use my Trusted Housesitters member link to save 25% on your membership, and I get two free months added to my annual subscription. Or, learn more about this awesome way to travel by checking out my Trusted Housesitters profile with over thirty 5-star reviews around the USA and the UK.
Whew.... I think that's my life in a nutshell. The only thing left is if you want to scroll below for more details about my ballroom dance career.
Whatever your reason for reading my ABOUT page, thanks for being here. I hope we stay in touch.
Teresa Sigmon
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Dance details about Teresa Sigmon
Teresa began dancing at the age of five. Ten years of strict ballet left her hungry for more fun and less painful pointe work. She changed instructors and fell in love with Jazz and Modern. At age sixteen, she had the honor of attending Governor’s School of North Carolina in the area of Modern dance. Teresa also received a North Carolina Teaching Fellows Scholarship for dance.
While attending N.C. State University School of Design, she missed dancing and called a local ballroom dance studio to see about taking lessons. As luck would have it, at age eighteen Teresa became an instructor instead of a student (which was her true calling giving that she had been “teaching” aerobics and dance routines since high school.)
Teresa Sigmon during her competitive dancing years between 1989 and 1995.
Teresa founded Seams Sensational in 1993 while she was still competing in the Theater Arts/Cabaret division as well as teaching ballroom dance.
Within a year, she had four employees and had become one of the top designers in the American ballroom dance scene. As a result of working with hundreds of women across the U.S. and Canada, she finely honed her craft of creating stunning dresses that fit women of all ages, shapes and sizes – bringing out the best in each figure.
She teaches all her dressmaker tips inside the Sew Like A Pro™ sewing programs.
After only one year of ballroom training, Teresa was chosen to partner a nationally renowned dancer.
In a classic case of “the road not taken”, she left behind her college days and fun times Dirty Dancing with her fellow dance instructors and began training competitively in Phoenix, Arizona.
Teresa’s competitive accomplishments include:
- U.S. Professional Rhythm Champion and U.S. National Top Six Finalist, 1989-1991
- Chosen to participate in a goodwill dance tour in Russia. Traveled and performed for two weeks in Moscow and St. Petersburg, October, 1991
- U.S. Professional Rising Star Theater Arts Champion, 1994, and Open Top Six Finalist, 1993-1995
- Performed in the American Pavilion at Epcot Center in Orlando, Florida, 1994
Teresa Sigmon and Jeff Robinson. 1994 Theater Arts/Cabaret Division.
Get free dressmaker training with my Sew Like A Pro™ newsletters!
4-10 emails per month. Unsubscribe at any time.
Get weekly Goodness For You inspiration via email.
4 emails per month. Unsubscribe at any time.