President of Palmer/Pletsch Publishing

Pati Palmer has been teaching sewing for 39 years and was recently inducted into The American Sewing Guild's Sewers Hall of Fame. After being an educator for the Armo interfacing company and a department store buyer and home economist, she conducted seminars throughout North America and Australia for 15 years, traveling 26 weeks per year. In 1980, nine Palmer/Pletsch Educators did 900 seminars a year. In 1985, she established the Palmer/Pletsch International School of Sewing in Portland, Oregon where she now trains consumers and sewing educators. Over 600 sewing teachers have been trained since 1991. She is the author of 10 sewing books and editor/publisher of 23 more books and 15 how-to DVD's, and creator of eight Palmer/Pletsch sewing notion products, including an interfacing line.

From 1980 to the present Pati has designed and written instructions for more than 100 patterns for The McCall Pattern Co. Prior to that she designed for Vogue. Her 1980 "8-hour Blazer" for McCall's that sold one million copies in one year was featured at FIT's (Fashion Institute of Technology) exhibit in New York City called "Dreams on Paper."

Pati has appeared with Regis Philbin and on Good Morning Australia, and has had her books and patterns featured in Family Circle, Vogue, Australian Stitches, and all of the major American sewing publications. She was national chairman of the Business Section of the American Association of Family and Consumer Sciences which also named her Entrepreneur of the Year, a co-founder of the Consumer Trends Forum, and advisor to the founders of the national Professional Association of Custom Clothiers. She also held the position of Vice-President of Education for the Home Sewing Association for 5 years and has spoken at consumer and trade shows in 3 countries. Pati holds a B.S. degree in Clothing, Textiles and Related Arts from Oregon State University.

She also currently runs a business importing ceramics from Italy and distributing them throughout the US including in her own store in Portland, Oregon under the same name, Mamma Ro. She has published a cookbook called The Food Nanny Rescues Dinner by Liz Edmunds. You can see all book and dvd titles on www.palmerpletsch.com .