ABOUT THE TWINS

Niki and Erin are identical twins -- we have the DNA test to prove it!  Beyond our genetics, we share a creative streak that our mom just doesn't understand.  We both learned to crochet from our grandma when we were little, but it was Erin who picked it back up in grad school (she has her masters in accounting).  She helped reteach Niki (who lived a couple of states away) while Niki was toiling away in law school.  Erin made a bunch of gorgeous doilies and Niki hooked afghans for virtually everyone she knew.

By Niki's third year of law school, she was reeeeeally bored and bought a cheapie sewing machine.  She sewed a few things over the next couple of years, including a bunch of aprons and valances because they had lots of straight lines.  The sewing machine was not so great (but probably would have worked a lot better if Niki knew she was supposed to change out the needle more often than only when it broke).

Erin and Niki both graduated, got jobs, got married, had kids, quit working, and didn't do much creating for a few years.  Then, Niki bought Erin a book on crocheting amigurumi cats.  Niki slowly started sewing again (and got a new machine, thank goodness) and suddenly discovered the amazing online world of free sewing tutorials through Pinterest.  Erin branched out and started crocheting all sorts of other amigurumi and bags from fabulous free online tutorials as well.  She also recently crossed over to the dark side and learned to knit.

We both started completely neglecting our family blogs (maintained because we had cute kids who lived far away from doting grandparents) and clogged up each other's inboxes with photos of our creations.  We finally had the bright idea to start a blog to track the tutorials we were creating from and to post photos of our creations for each other to see.  We kept giving away projects we made and wanted to remember them somewhere, too.  That led to Roonie Ranching -- named for the goofy nickname our dad gave us when we were little (and because we couldn't think of any good sewing/crocheting puns).  Dad still calls us "Roonies" to this day.

Someday we may go back to accounting and lawyering (actually, no, Niki never ever wants to be a lawyer again and needs to find something else to do), but for now we're just Roonie Ranching.  Erin crochets/knits in Texas and Niki sews in Michigan, but we talk/text/e-mail each other about 800 times a day about anything and everything.

Sometimes, our little brother, Jordan, has a guest post about his manly crafting adventures.  He's a tattooed, motorcycle-riding math teacher living in Texas, but that doesn't mean he doesn't have a hankering for crocheting every now and again.  He considers himself a gigolo, because what else would you call a male hooker?  Jordan is only 23 months younger than us, which means our parents had three children within two years.  YIKES.  No wonder we're all a little goofy.