Every so often I'm compelled to....................

Just remind myself how inept I am at piecing........

And just how much I really detest it!

I love to see pieced quilts, I admire the precision, the workmanship, the interaction of the different shapes and colours, the secondary patterns.

I take my hat off to people like Bonnie, Jeanne, Fiona and the rest of you who make such lovely pieced quilts.

But to me it's a real chore, a challenge, an effort. Nothing about it comes naturally.

No matter how much I follow advice about pinning, butting seams up together etc etc I seldom get the sharp crisp joins I'd like to.

So it was no surprise at all that having spent several hours the other afternoon on my Four Seasons Autumn Quilt, cutting out and stitching almost 200 1.5" HSTs that I decided 'Stuff It!!!' and moved onto something more manageable.

I know my 1/4" seams were accurate - I was sooooo careful. But could I get this sawtooth border to measure the same as the centre I wanted to stitch it to - er NO! This lot goes into the 'Stuff It In A Cupboard, Never To See The Light Of Day Again' category - unless somebody else can give them a good home!

Anyway I abandoned the sawtooth border design in exchange for a 3" wide QST border instead. I really didn't want to put a plain border on even though I was going to applique onto it - I was aiming for a mottled background in muted shades but not a solid piece of fabric.

However even with the QSTs this was not to be that simple.

I was obviously getting tired when I added the second side - note the darks together in the top LH corner

So I left it until the next morning - and merrily frogstitched and restitched away.

Only to blob on the bottom row - 'Concentrate Anne, For Goodness Sake!!!'

My stitch unpicker certainly had a bit of usage on this one. Mind you, to give me some credit, usually I would've just given up and gone to play a different game so my persistence and focus on task in the face of adversity and frustration is improving!

Anyway eventually I got it to the stage I wanted - so now onto the applique - Yeah!!! Back in my comfort zone. Hurray!!!!!

Sarah's had a terrific week this week though. As she's in the top stream at school she has taken her Maths GCSE a year early. The results were out on Thursday and both she and we were delighted that her result was a B. In addition to this one half of her Double Science was also on the results sheet and she got an A. One very happy girl! Two in the bag before the real push next year.

But to top this for her birthday this year we'd paid for her to participate in a three day Rugby course at the local club, but run by one of the big clubs - Northampton Saints. She and her team mate Abbey were the only girls amongst over 20 boys.

She's had a ball and learned lots of new things too, but the icing on the cake was to be awarded the 'Saintsman award' for the person on the course who showed most chance of making it big in the sport, becoming a Northampton Saints player in the future (although technically her gender prevents this) and who was the most focused, dedicated, helpful, cheerful and committed player in the coaches' opinion.

As you can imagine, for her, this made the exam results pale into relative insignificance.

On Friday morning she said to me 'Mum, you know I don't think that yesterday could have been any better in any way'

Happy Kids make Happy Mums!