Becoming a grandparent can be a life changing experience, just ask anyone who has experienced it.
Judith Stewart took it one step further, though. When she became a grandmother a couple of years ago, it inspired her to start a new business. Sadiebug Designs is a Yorkton-based line of children's clothing and other items such as blankets, bibs, pouch chairs and car seat covers.
"Our granddaughter's name is Sadie and I like ladybugs so they just kind of melded," Stewart said. "She's either going to hate me or she's going to think it's cool having a label named after her."
Judith also makes seasonal items such as Christmas stockings and Halloween bags, and specialty items such as tooth fairy pillows.
"Little kids lose their teeth and often the tooth gets lost under the pillow and parents are digging in under the pillow trying to find it, wake the kid up and that spoils everything," she explained. "This can either hang on the door or on the bed post if there is one and nobody wakes up."
Judith has been sewing all her life, to begin with out of necessity.
"We didn't have very much income in our family so we learned to sew and make things out of other things," she said.
As a young woman she turned it into a quilting business.
"I've always done some kind of sewing," she said. "I just love sewing so that was what I was doing 40 years ago and now I'm doing mostly children's things."
In between, she found her true passion. Judith taught school for more than 40 years, including 32 in Yorkton.
"I was born to be a teacher, sometimes you just know," she said.
She also found her husband, Murray. They were married and moved to Saskatoon while Murray finished his teaching degree at the University of Saskatchewan. Judith taught and had a photography business on the side.
When he graduated, he obtained a job in Yorkton where they have been ever since.
That was not the original plan.
"We moved here temporarily in 1976, so it's not that temporary," she said. "To move here wasn't a leap of faith or anything, it was fine, because we were used to smaller cities, but we weren't expecting stay. But then you just do because it's a good place... to raise kids especially."
They had two kids, Mitchell and Hillary.
Yorkton also put an end to her photography business. They simply didn't have the space to set up a studio and darkroom.
It was not a big problem for her at the time, with the children and teaching, photography took a back seat.
She would eventually come back to it, though.
"When I retired in 2008, I knew I couldn't do nothing," she explained. "So, I upgraded my equipment, of course, because everything is digital now. I do a few weddings in the summer, only as many as I want, though. I don't have to make a living doing this, I love doing it."
And she loves making her unique Sadiebug creations.
"Everything is one of a kind," she said. "I don't make any two things exactly the same, Every blanket is different, every car seat cover is different, every outfit is different, because I don't want to be a manufacturer."
That, of course, has its downside in profitability.
"As craftspeople you never get your hours paid, " she explained.
"We just don't, so I take whatever the materials cost and then add some money for my time. There are some things that I'm selling at what it cost me to make it because the fabric was expensive and I know people won't pay. I do it because I like to be creative."
