

Spring Joy
I made a pretty pattern and had it printed on a tote bag.
This was one of the patterns I made as part of my Immersion coursework.
The course consolidated my knowledge and improved my skills to become a surface pattern designer. The opportunity has given me the confidence to follow my dream of seeing my patterns on products.
It’s been a long road from that first daisy tile pattern in Corel Xara X in 2010 to 2025, but I am beaming not just with how the pattern looks on the tote bag but also that I had the courage to take action and make it happen.
I can see where I could improve on the colourway. I also learned a good lesson about reading the product description size properly, as I thought the bag would be bigger than it is. It’s certainly Steph-size! The cost was eye-watering for the size of the bag, too, but I guess that’s print on demand for you.
I posted it on my Facebook account, and it received a lot of positive feedback. One friend said that they would buy it, which was another confidence boost.
Now I need to think about the next steps and how I can go about setting up shop. Suggestions on services to use are welcome.