Hill Resident Sews Gifts

Barbara Zerbe’s Potrero Hill garage is packed with embroidery machines. Zerbe owns Barbara’s Embroidery, which she operates from her Arkansas Street home. The 62-year-old relies on her Tajima machines to fulfill custom orders, including threading together artwork for local enterprises like KQED and stitching children’s names onto school backpacks.

Many Bay Area embroiderers focus on bulk orders, declining one-off requests. Zerbe tries to fulfill smaller remits even during Christmas, like adding a cheery phrase to a stocking or a nickname on a pocket-sized gift. 

“I know that the small stuff is often really, really important,” Zerbe said. “I like to be able to connect with people and do jobs that can’t necessarily be done otherwise.”

Before Zerbe became a full-time embroiderer, she sold hand-designed shirts on Fisherman’s Wharf. She purchased an embroidery machine with the intention of using it to design her shirts, teaching herself how to operate the equipment. When tourism in San Francisco dipped in the early 2000s, she moved her shirt business into her garage and started taking custom embroidery orders to make money. When tech companies re-emerged in the City in 2005 after the dotcom bust, and sought out embroiderers to help customize clothing, Zerbe pitched them her services. 

“It was the right time, right place,” she recalled. 

For decades, Zerbe embroidered while balancing another job: raising three kids. During the day she’d take care of her family; at night when they slept, she’d quietly work on orders in the garage.  

When her kids got older, they learned how to use the machines and help complete orders for pocket money. Zerbe joked that embroidery is a family business; all her now adult kids know how to embroider. Her eldest son owns his own embroidery shop, Sew Marin, in San Rafael. 

“They all really appreciated it I think,” she laughed.