Cruella DeVille, I get you.

Don't be alarmed, dear readers. I'm not about to hunt down a bunch of dalmatian pups and skin them for their spots. It's just, have you ever seen a color combination with fresh eyes before? You've seen the combo a million times, but suddenly you realize it just sits right with you. You want to surround yourself with as much of it as possible and get just a little bit giddy when you see it in a new place. No? Well, I'm not ashamed. I love color, and I am very stubborn about it, too. And for that reason I often reject certain colors—like Fuschia, my least favorite of all the colors—and tend towards neutrals. Mostly this means I go for the gray, but lately I've been enjoying the contrast that black and white offer. On Thursday we took Seb to his favorite park in Tübingen, and there was this one perfect black and white speckled pigeon in a sea of grayish blue ones, and I just couldn't get over how beautiful it was! I was also decidedly sad when Bruno good-naturedly chased him away and I was left with all the solid-colored pigeons.

If you're still reading, you're probably like, "Tell me something new, Mary. Everyone knows that black and white are a dynamite combo." Yes, but I don't just like black and white together like black and white stripes or a tiled floor, or a white top with black bottoms. What really gets me is when they're combined in a more organic way, like above in the form of a dappled horse, a black and white photograph, marbled iPhone case, dappled shoes and spotted dress, and if Warby Parker ever made black and white tortoise glasses I wouldn't know what to do with myself (although these in sea smoke tortoise come delightfully close). Even this buffalo plaid blanket and play dress, which are decidedly more geometric, get me!  I'm an organic kind of girl, and no matter what, I'll always feel more comfortable in shibori than stripes.

When I was 16, my parents bought me a cedar chest. There were two in stock, so my dad and I looked over both so we could decide which one we liked best. They were the exact same except for the grain of the wood. I wanted to know dad's opinion and he wanted to know mine, and we quickly discovered that we each favored a different one. We then figured out it was because my dad loves the look of smooth wood, without much grain. I loved the chest with all the knots and deep runs of dark reddish brown to creamy caramel. That's the one I picked.

Give me things that are dappled or mottled and I will be on cloud nine for weeks, I tell you. When choosing a plant at the greenhouse I worked at in high school and part of college, I picked the one with the most variegation in the leaves. I still have that plant 6 years later and it is my very favorite. Many thanks to my mom for keeping it alive while I'm in Germany.

So apparently this long-held love of things with mixed or marbled colors has gained a sharper focus, and I can't seem to get enough.

Do you relate at all? Do you love smoothness and clean lines? Or the unpredictable and organic like me? And of course, what is your favorite color combo to date? This is important stuff, people. Not really, but you don't really need me to tell you that.

P.S. This handspun yarn