Hasten Slowly…an adage loved by Roman emperors and Shakespeare alike, and one that sewers ought to have embroidered on their breasts – a bit like Nathaniel Hawthorne’s Scarlet Letter. Don’t you just love pithy Latin sayings? Another favourite of mine is the old Carpe Diem, now much used and abused by all, including me. Both have the same theme though when you think about it, – hasten slowly…proceed with care and steadily, paying attention, and then you won’t use the old seam ripper quite so often because you went ahead in a hurry without proper prepping [a sore point today] and carpe diem, seize the day..make the best use of time, don’t waste it. Both the foregoing sum up my sewing for today. Clearly I didn’t hasten slowly and my diem was well and truly wasted.

I should have done so much more today. Practically, I had the time to use, nothing else called and I had the will, what I lacked was the concentration and attention to detail. Paying attention as my old teachers used to say was something I never found easy. There were so many things to think about, so over the years I have had to learn to concentrate.

I got complacent today. Having just finished a shirt and about to do an almost identical one, I breezed ahead forgetting all the little things and the order they should be done. A lot of ripping. Lesson learned the hard way. Tomorrow my festina will definitely be lente – and hopefully I should be able to carpe diem. I’ll let you know.