John and Judy at their daughter's graduation from UQ

Judy has always been 'arty farty' with a nesting home making bent.  John is a typical male that wants to solve his wife's problems.  He has ASD tendancies which make him tenacious on some tedious tasks (ideally suited to embroidery design and computers).

Judy always wanted an embroidery machine and so when we sold our small country caravan park we bought one.  Immediately John was trying to solve the computing/embroidery problems and acquire images for Judy to produce.   (He is still waiting for his construction shirt logo "OB Construction" short for Old Bastards Construction.)

It was pretty obvious from the beginning that designs on the internet were sloppy and limited.  We weren't into names on towels and linen.  Judy wanted works of art and John wanted a challenge.  We also wanted something to work on together as our work lives often kept us apart.

John's first challenge was converting a picture of several pelicans at Theodolite Creek near Woodgate into an embroidery design.  "That was cool.  But what if I could put a flower under a scanner rather than take a photo of it?"  Surprisingly that can work.

Judy wanted 'Snuggle Pie and Cuddle Pie' May Gibbs image embroidered on a bunny rug for possible granddaughter.  (Not for sale because of copyright on the image.)   However the bug had bittern us and it wasn't a bed bug.

Our biggest problem is finding time for these creations.  Judy works in the stressful education field of special needs.  Although she only works 4 days a week (and gets paid for only 4), she works on school matters during her days off just to catch up on her case notes and lessons preparation.  At school by 8 and home after 6 leaves her plumb warn out for creative work.  John can help with certain things but after all he is a male when it comes to colours.

We are geting there though.   Starting this web page is just one step.  The proto-type ecommerce site at www.seasidestitches.net  is another.

Our dreams of living right on the beach and working together wouldn't seem complete if we had to call our business anything else but Seaside Stitches. 

Judy being her usual helpful self.

John does have thoughts of other things....too!

Not John's feet but his son's, Aaron.

If you haven't already guessed we want to create our master art at Woodgate by the sea.  Cyclones (like Hamish 2009 above) tried to dampen our spirits but we did have the roof on. 

We just need enough clear weather to watch the occasional full moon rise over the ocean and enough sun to dry the sails of our Caper Cat.