It took me hours. I was in two minds whether to do it or not. I could’ve stayed with the errors and adapted the pattern accordingly. It would be a bind, I told myself, but it might be a good way of breaking out of the strictures of the prescribed format and imposing my own scheme. I thought about it all Saturday, in between thoughts of her. I’d sewn the initial part over a year ago. It had been my first one and flush with the energy of ignorance I’d purchased the harder one. And it was too hard. Fiddly and troublesome to count. At least it was then. A year later I am defter and more confident perhaps. So I’d picked it up where I’d left off foolishly not checking whether my first attempt was right. It wasn’t. It was way out. It frustrates me how easily I err. After all it’s only a question of counting. But it’s always been the same, I’m not good with following patterns, rules or colouring in between the lines. So I unpicked it. Stitch by stitch. I thought I could save the thread but it was impossible. The tension of my initial stumblings was too tight, the thread had to be cut. Denuded of thread the linen still holds a ghosting of what was there before, a hint colour and form. It is done. It is unpicked. Time to begin again.
