INQUIRING MINDS WANT TO KNOW

I receive a fair number of emails every day wanting to know this or that about me and my stitchy habits. The comment that I seem to get most often is "Wow, Spinster Stitcher. You sure stitch fast and crank out those finishes! How do you do it?"

In the interest of full disclosure, I must confess that it's all an illusion.

If you reaaaallllly look at this here blog, you will discover that I have only completed seven things so far this year. Seven! Do you know that there are some stitchers out there who complete HUNDREDS of things in a twelve month period?! (You know who you are, so don't get all bashful and such and pretend like it's no big deal. It is a big deal. You should be quite proud of that accomplishment and shout it from the stitchy rooftops.)

This year I seem to be stitching for the sake of stitching. I don't know what that means exactly, but if something starts singing to me, I pick it up, poke it with a threaded needle a few times, and then see where it takes us. Sometimes I am captivated (like with the Stars piece), and other times I get about five minutes into it and realize that there is no future for us and I quietly leave the table before the appetizers have arrived.

I stitch for pure...welll...um....how can I put this politely? I stitch so that I don't go out in public and make a complete and total jackass of myself by talking ad nauseum about something that most people could care less about. I also stitch so that I don't have to leave my house or go out into nature. I hate nature, and I'm pretty sure it hates me right back.

So while I do thank you for ranking me right up there with the Olympic Stitchers, I have to tell you that I don't belong there in any way shape or form.

Another question that I get a lot is about my stash and its apparent expansion at a moment's notice. The secret here is that I have a little sister who has to put up with me and my crazy obsessions, and every time I say "OMG! Did you see the (insert something stitchy and wonderful here) on the blogs today?!" she orders it for me. A few days will go by and then she'll say (in the course of a completely unrelated conversation) "I did something bad", and as I'm waiting to hear that she's become a Columbian cocaine czar or that she burned down a day care center (because those would indeed be "bad" in my opinion), she tells me that she ordered whatever it was that I was obsessing about just days ago and that it should be in her mailbox within the next day or so.

So in the case of the recent Prairie Moon piece, we were talking about it and I probably said something like "Oh, Aunt Chrissy. You have to buy that for me right this very minute", and she did so and then had to put up with me prancing around asking "Is it here yet?" every ten minutes.

And that, dear friends, is how I acquire my stash.

A lot of you want to know if Stewey is really as precocious as he appears to be. The only answer I can give you to that is the following conversation that took place between Aunt Chrissy and my very self this weekend:

ME: Oh, Aunt Chrissy. I just don't know what to do. Stewey won't listen to me, we're not getting along, and he spends all day stomping around the house moping because I can't figure out how to make him happy. I'm just so worried that I'm not equipped to give him everything that he needs and that he will eventually decide to go live with somebody else.

AC: HE'S A FREAKIN DOG! Listen up, Aunt CJ. If you don't' get your head out of your b-u-t-t when it comes to this damn dog, I'm going to stop coming over here to separate the two of you. You need to take control. You need to be the boss. You need to establish yourself as the alpha in this household, and he has to figure it out and the get over it.

ME: (weeping copiously) I know, I know, but it's just that...I...can't....seem..to get ahead with him. He gets so mad at me and then he goes on that blog and writes such mean and terrible things and then he takes the car and disappears for days and days at a time and I worry. Oh, how I worry so, Aunt Chrissy.

(Sound of door slamming as Aunt Chrissy decides that the only thing that's going to fix this particular situation is to put her idiot sister in a home and let the damn dog turn the house into the Mishawaka Playboy Mansion.)

So to answer your question....yes. Stewey is, in fact, the most unusual little creature you could possibly imagine. But I will tell you what I told him recently: "Stewey, if Jeffrey Dean Morgan His Very Self came into the house and said "Hello, Spinster Stitcher. I'm Jeffrey Dean Morgan, and I'm here to marry you and love you and take care of you and kiss you on your face and be nice to you forever, but you've got to get rid of that weird little dog", I would say "No way, Jeffrey Dean Morgan. It's nice to finally meet you in person and all, but the dog stays". That's how much I love you, Stewey Dear".)

This brings us to our final frequent question/comment. Many of you notice that I seem to flit from man to man and that my obsessions seem to change a lot. This is true. I have a stable of hot and handsome men that I think about from time to time, and depending upon my current mood and/or situation, I'll insert the appropriate character into the scene.

For example, if I'm chopping salad vegetables, I imagine that Chef Robert Irvine is there with his big guns....teaching me proper knife skills while wearing nothing but an apron and a British accent. If I'm out tending the garden, then I see Kevin Costner out there in that corn field from Field of Dreams telling me that he's heard a voice saying "If you build it, she will marry you".

Most of the day, though, I tend to rely on my Old Faithful.....my perfect version of what my perfect boyfriend would be. He's tall and dark and handsome and he looks like he would be very very nice to me. He knows the importance of a crisp white dress shirt and just how far one can push the scruffy facial hair look without appearing sinister, and because he's from the Seattle area he understands my need for a proper cup of damn good coffee every morning. He loves a good joke, smiles easily, isn't afraid to show emotion in public, and (if his role in The Accidental Husband tells us anything), he moonlights as a New York City Firefighter.

(Come on, girls and boys. Is there ANYTHING more wonderful than a New York City Firefighter? Maybe a Jersey boy. Maybe. Or a professional British chef. Maybe. But a firefighter? From Queens? I don't think so.)

So yes, to answer the question. I'm a 45-year old woman who has an unhealthy obsession with Jeffrey Dean Morgan and other men on the TeeVee that will never ever take me to dinner. I kind of like it this way, actually. It means I never have to shave my legs and I can order onion on my egg sandwiches.

Well, I think that's enough peeking into the mind of a deranged spinster blogger today. Please feel free to keep those questions coming, though! It makes me feel good to know that after hearing my whacky perspective on stuff you know that you are, in fact, the most normal person on the planet.

Oh, and before I forget....the linen that I'll be using on that Prairie Moon piece is called "Camofudge" and it's from Stitches and Spice, an Australian Hand Dyed Fabric company. (I think that's what the chart calls for).

(Here's where I can hear you screaming "I HAD TO READ NINE PAGES OF DRIVEL BEFORE YOU WERE ABLE TO TELL ME THAT NAME OF THE DAMN LINEN!!!".) Ooopps. Sorry. I'll try to remember to put the important stuff first, crazy last next time.

Happy Tuesday!