What's in a name?

 

Karen at My Colonial Home is having a challenge, asking how we began our blog and came up with our name. I may be too late, but thought it would be fun to share anyway :)

 

In 2008 I was enjoying many blogs and started thinking that I might try my hand at it. Lana of Honeysuckle Lane and Suzanne of Pear Tree Primitives were so helpful and supportive, that I went ahead. My first post on June 3, 2008 showed how thrilled I was that I actually got it up and running. When Lori Brechlin of Notforgotten Farm left my very first comment I was so over the moon thrilled that I sent her a velvet strawberry :)  

 

How my blog name came to be is a longer story...

When I was little I remember helping my mom at a few craft shows and how fun it was. The year I married my husband, I started doing craft shows with my sister-in-law another kindred spirit. After about 10 years, we decided to step it up a notch and get business cards. So we had to think of a name. My sister-in-law's name is Joy and so she came up with the sweet and clever name of "Joyfully Yours". I thought hard and had such a tough time. We had just moved into our first home after living in a condominium for 10 years. We were so thrilled with our home on Vine Avenue. Here in Chicago all of the streets are very straight and form square blocks, but Vine Avenue is a little meandering and slightly curvy compared to the other streets. So I came up with the name Winding Vine Designs.

 

It also helped that one of my favorite bible passages talks about a vine:

“I am the true vine, and my Father is the gardener. He cuts off every branch in me that bears no fruit, while every branch that does bear fruit he prunes so that it will be even more fruitful. You are already clean because of the word I have spoken to you. Remain in me, as I also remain in you. No branch can bear fruit by itself; it must remain in the vine. Neither can you bear fruit unless you remain in me.

“I am the vine; you are the branches. If you remain in me and I in you, you will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing. If you do not remain in me, you are like a branch that is thrown away and withers; such branches are picked up, thrown into the fire and burned. If you remain in me and my words remain in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you. This is to my Father’s glory, that you bear much fruit, showing yourselves to be my disciples.

 “As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Now remain in my love. If you keep my commands, you will remain in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commands and remain in his love. I have told you this so that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be complete. My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends. You are my friends if you do what I command. I no longer call you servants, because a servant does not know his master’s business. Instead, I have called you friends, for everything that I learned from my Father I have made known to you. You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you so that you might go and bear fruit—fruit that will last—and so that whatever you ask in my name the Father will give you. This is my command: Love each other."

John 15: 1-17

 

For my blog name I chose Winding Vine Wanderings. Keeping Winding Vine, but adding the "Wanderings" for I feel like whenever I start reading blogs, I am on a wandering path that leads to other kindred spirits and fascinating places.

 

Thank you so much for letting me share here for over 4 years and for your kind comments!

Blessings, Patti