After sewing clothes throughout high school, college, and my early days as a teacher, I put aside my sewing machine for several years while caring for my very young children.

Making space for my creative side was important, however. My passion for sewing reignited through an upholstery course I took at a local community college. I jumped into bag making, attracted to designing something both beautiful and practical, without the need for all the alteration my clothes sewing had required.

I began selling the bags I designed on Etsy in 2011. In 2013, a fellow sewist asked if I would consider making a pattern for one of my bag designs. I gave it a go and have been creating digital sewing patterns for bag making ever since, as Hold It Right There Patterns. As a former educator, I break my patterns into bite-size steps with lots of photos to accompany each step. In 2020, I began creating detailed video tutorials to walk through each pattern step.

My passion is to facilitate creativity, offering my sewing patterns as blank templates for the completely unique creative expressions of each maker.

Suzanna, Hold It Right There Patterns