What's in a name?

Hello!

Welcome to my blog.

I've been toying with the idea of starting a blog for ages. But, what would it be about? Would I have enough content to post things frequently enough that it wouldn't get stale? When would I find time to post? What on earth would I name it?

My sister, Hannah, wanted to do the 30x30 remix challenge this month. I'm a few days behind but I've decided to join her, and figured this would be as good a time as any to actually do something about this nagging 'maybe I should start a blog someday' idea. Check! I'll be posting a second post about that - for posterity, I want an 'about' entry to link back to.

So, first things first!

Who am I?

My name is Amanda. 

I'm the eldest of 4 siblings, married for 3 years (time has flown by!) to this guy:

breaking in my new house, living across from a farm and dreaming of Alpaca ownership (no, I am not kidding), while keeping up a day job of software development for a major research corporation. 

I've been making things since I was a kid. I grew up homeschooled with very supportive parents. 

Jewelry-making came first, along with a lot of Sculpy clay, air-dry terracotta clay, and dreams of a kiln in the backyard. (That never happened. Neither did a glass bead lampworking station. I think I was in about 3rd grade when this was going on.) Yarn entered soon after that, with a lesson in finger-crocheting and lots of old crochet magazines from the 70's. I made a lobster plushy, and started crocheting clothes around all of my Beanie Babies and other toys. 

Knitting then overtook crochet, as it quickly became apparent that crocheted clothing was stiff and not suitable to humans (this has been changing of late - if you haven't caught wind of this yet, check out The Crochet Project to start). My interest in knitting waned for a while and picked up again in earnest about 3 years ago. I went from having one scarf on the back burner for a year to completing multiple sweaters and knitting All The Christmas Gifts last year. Ravelry had a lot to do with this, and you can find me there as AmandaLynA. Now, I would probably describe myself as a knitter first and foremost.

Sewing skills were taught early on, and learned in earnest when necessity dictated that since I could not buy plain dark skirts that fit, I should just learn how to sew them. Papercrafting whizzed by in the background of all of this throughout the years- fun, but I could never figure out what the point of it was. Cards get thrown out, and you can only have so many neat pictures on the wall, or appliquéd boxes. Excellent cooking and baking were prevalent in my house, and a necessity to learn once I left it. 

Buying a house earlier this year meant LAND. Having land meant we could have a vegetable garden. More cooking, and preserving and canning ensued. This is all still a huge experiment, so you'll get to follow along as we work out this particular branch of homesteading. 

Spinning is the newest art in my toolbox. It seemed natural to progress from knitting to spinning. It is SO relaxing and I highly recommend it. DIY your first drop spindle - it's easy, cheap, and lets you experiment with things before getting sucked into the heaps of terminology and brand hype.

OK already, so what about this name?

A very high percentage of conversations with me these days start out by someone asking, "What are you making?" I am a huge proponent of crafting in public. Most of my crafting time is actually spent outside of my home, at parties or at friends house, getting a cup of coffee at the bookstore with my husband, during conferences or long meetings, on plane flights. Portable crafting is an excellent conversation starter and has often broadened my sphere of acquaintances and friends as I discover other crafters in places you wouldn't expect (like my Systems Engineering training program at work). 

The name also gives me a broad starting point for the content on this blog. I'll be sharing what I'm working on now, what's in progress and finished, plans for what's coming next.

Welcome! This should be fun.