Hello!

Hello! My name is Allie. Well.. my “real” name is Ai which means LOVE in Japanese. I love my name, but it’s pronounced the same as “I” in English , so you could guess how difficult my life can be with that name here in Australia. So my friends and family here call me Allie.

I live in Melbourne with my husband and son. After I worked for an educational institution in Tokyo for 12 years (for more than half of the time, I worked from home in Melbourne because it was website management job), I lost my job!

This happened just after I got back to work from my parental leave. Before this, I thought I could work from home so we didn’t have childcare organised and then it was too late to find somewhere look after my son Nico. Obviously it is very difficult for a mum to find a full time job without childcare.

I needed to work because we were trying to buy a house. I didn’t really have an option to become a housewife financially. I was wondering, "What do I do????"

Then my husband Paul suggested to me to have an online shop, which we sometimes talked about just jokingly. It was one of those random business ideas that we chatted about from time to time, but never seemed real. But he passionately believed that I could do it, saying how much it suits me and that I have a talent for it. I didn’t have a confidence in myself, but he really encouraged me to give it a go. (He is a great guy!)

I actually think that I always wanted to do my own business, but didn’t have the courage to give up secure work. After I lost my job, I guess I didn’t have a choice, but in a positive way it was a great chance to start something new.

This is how I decided to start my shop “nuno & stitch”. I finished my previous work last week and now I’m starting to prepare for the shop more seriously. I will write about my struggles and excitement for opening the shop in this blog “stitch by stitch” (and also about some other random favourite things). I hope you will enjoy seeing the process how my shop is made and look forward to the opening of “nuno and stitch”.

With Love,
Allie