MATCHY MATCHY

It all started when I was a little girl. I have a very distinct memory of sitting in my little sandbox playing with empty containers from my dad's tool b0x. I think they must have been packaging for screws and nuts and bolts, because they were clear plastic with colored tops on them.

So there I was...minding my own business, when it hit me square between the eyeballs that the colors on the container tops weren't all the same. There were red ones and green ones and blue ones and yellow ones.

This, in my punky little head, was completely unacceptable (they should have all been the same color, size, texture, and shape, don't you know), so I did what any normal two year old would do. I screamed bloody murder until Mom came running out of the house, convinced that her child had been mauled by a pack of wild dogs.

But I regress.

I have always been a "matchy matchy" kind of girl. I like things to be in order. I like them to match. I like things to line up perfectly and be labeled to within an inch of their lives and, most importantly, I like them to stay that way. In short, I prefer that everything in my world adheres to a strict matchy matchy kind of code.

In my younger days (before the advent of white cotton Fruit of the Loom big girl underpants), I insisted that my bra and underpants match. Always. Couldn't leave the house unless the flowers on the top matched the flowers on the bottom. Likewise with shoes, belts, and purses. And hats, scarves, and gloves. If it was within my realm of experience, it had to match.

At work, the pens in the pen cup had to all be the same. The pads that I took notes on needed to match the ones that were in my portfolio. My file folders needed to look like they were a family. Get the picture?

So now, as an...ahem....adult stitcher, I find myself....how shall I say this?...Completely screwed. I have this weird compulsion to matchy matchy all of my stitchy stuff. I want all of the crap to be lined up in military precision and I want to know that if a chart calls for Crescent Colors, I will use only Crescent Colors for that chart and all of its companions. If I'm colorizing a needlepoint canvas, I usually start off with the type of thread I want (i.e., Silk and Ivory, perle cotton, etc.) and then I use that and only that to colorize the entire project.

And then my stitchy muse comes along (with medication in hand) and kicks me in the head and reminds me that there is such a thing as texture, depth, creativity, and improvisation in stitching. It makes me throw everything up into the air and...gasp.....just. let. it. be.

So after years and years of resisting the matchy matchy urge, I am once again grappling with the need to anal-retentive this sucker right into oblivion. Do you see what the nice people at The Prairie Schooler have done to me? Do ya'? Huh Huh? Do ya'?:They decided to use the same palette for all of these kits! And, if you notice, the palette is rather simply: red, green, white, and black. No brown. No yellow. No pink, purple, or lavender. Red. Green. White. Black.

So if I decide to change colors on 2008's "By the Chimney", does that mean that I now have license to change the colors on 2005, 2006, and 2007 too? And if I change the colors on one, do I need to use those same colors in the other three? What if I have to use different dye lots? Or, heaven forbid, what if I simply RUN OUT OF a color and have to switch it up for one of the other pieces in the series?!

AAAARRRRGGGGHHHHH!

Do you see why I should not be allowed into the stitchy world. At all? Stitching is supposed to be FUN! And CREATIVE! And something one does to stretch one's ARTISTIC and FREE SPIRITED thinking!

Why can't I just get with the freakin' program and have some fun? WHY? WHY?

Note from Stewey: Um. My mom can't come to the blog right now. She's outside trying to re-arrange the snow flakes on the patio for a "more pleasing" configuration. She ran outta' here like her hair was on fire (and we all know that she's capable of doing that, don't we?) and said something about everything being SUCH A MESS that she just couldn't take it anymore. I swear I heard "Out, Out, Damn spot!", but I have no freakin' idea what that means. Well, I just thought I'd let you know why she left so abruptly. I'm gonna' go pee on something to see if I can distract her for a little while. Ciao for now!

Note from Dr. Melfi: Please don't be alarmed. She does this. Coni will go through a period of about fifteen minutes where she decides to clean/organize something and then she realizes that everything around her is a complete mess. This, in my clinical opinion, is due to the fact that she lives like a frat boy 28 days of the month and then tries to be Martha Stewart Her Very Self for the other two. So rather than say, just doing the damn laundry or emptying the dishwasher, she will pull out something stitchy related and fret over it until her insides bleed and she feels compelled to share it with all of her stitchy buddies online. We're working on limits, boundaries, and accountability, but methinks this will be a very long endeavor. In the meantime, please continue with what you're doing, and Stewey and I will get the dart gun loaded with sedatives.