Hey there! By now I hope you have some sense of what Quilt It List is about, but to give you some idea of who I am, beyond the blog.
My name is Amanda – don’t call me Mandy unless you’re related to me or fancy being hurt – and I am a proud Gen Xer, wife, boy mom and fur mom. I currently live in Colorado, though my heart resides in Oregon. My mom, sister and I moved here in ’86 but I have never really felt like Colorado is my home. That said, I firmly believe everything in our lives is by design, not accident. I know that there will come a time when my family can begin new adventures out west!
As I said – I am a wife – to a former US Marine, and mom to two boys (who are better described as man-children) as well as two cats and a boxer. The cats will undoubtedly make appearances on this page as they are super helpful.
Not.
Anyway, I honestly feel like I’ve lived 6 or 7 lifetimes at this point – and I’m not that old. I like to think of these lifetimes being divided by page breaks – which were followed by pivots. Not sure if you can identify or not, but I do believe all of those experiences were necessary and have led me to this point.
A bit of background – I spent the most crucial piece of my childhood in Oregon around some of the most important people in my life. My mom, sister and I spent a huge amount of time with my grandparents and to this day those are among my best memories. In addition to my grandparents, my Great Grandma P was an incredible influence – she taught me to crochet which was my introduction to the needle arts.
It didn’t stick. I really sucked at it so I moved on to cross stitch, where stitch consistency isn’t so much of a problem, lol!
I was lucky enough to go to middle and high school before they removed home ec, so in addition to my mom teaching me to sew, I learned some things there. The hubs bought me my first sewing machine for Christmas one year early in our relationship (we will celebrate our 20th in September). The machine was a very basic mechanical Singer, which was enough to make the boys some Halloween costumes, among other small projects, and to discover a love of free motion quilting.
But for the most part my best friends in school were pencils. I love to draw – still. I could always be found with a sketchbook and pencils. I paint as well – acrylic, but graphite is for sure my go-to medium.
In all the experiences I’ve had in my life, some things have remained consistent. My love of music and art among them.
This is definitely more wordy than I had intended, so to briefly describe my journey: I worked in sports and entertainment towards the end of high school, courtesy of volunteer work for marching band. I still have a job with one S&E company, though at the moment there isn’t anything happening at the one venue I work. I fell in love with hockey when the Quebec Nordiques moved to Colorado to become the Avalanche. I worked at McNichols at the time, moved to Pepsi Center when it opened and have worked 7 or 8 venues around the city over the past 25 years. I did a study abroad in Moscow after high school and another, shorter, trip to Russia in college. I worked in academic medicine for just under 10 years and other than the part time job have been home with my boys for the past 7 or so years.
My amazing hubs has been super supportive of my desire to start my own business, which I did in 2016. ALeeB Creative LLC was born and basically devoted to all things quilting. I started Quilt It List a couple years ago and in January 2020 I quit working at the Pepsi Center (I miss the Avs) to focus on my business. At this point, in addition to the online portion of my business I do the custom long arm quilting at a local quilt shop. I have enjoyed thoroughly helping, teaching and inspiring those around me in their quilting journeys. My hope is to do the same for you as well, my quilty friends! Please join me in this adventure!
