Hanging in after a day of blunders punctuated by lovely visits

I was peacefully continuing to piece and realizing that one of these fabrics, the stripey one, is polished cotton and not very friendly. Doesn't like to stay put, frays easily.

So it was unfortunate that in a moment of abstraction, it was next to a bit of it that I accidentally stitched in a patch inside out. Screams.

Then I started to unpick, got halfway round, was interrupted by a timer in the kitchen, returned, picked up where I thought I'd left off. And took out the wrong piece. One that was perfectly in place. Difficult to remove because perfectly fitted. The piece had to be tossed, damaged. And the unfriendly bit next to it was fraying. And I still had to remove the inside out piece.

Then I cut a new piece and right in the middle of this upset..my unexpected friend suddenly let herself in the back door with her excitable dog while I was in the other room. And said little dog, so happy to see me, jumped up among the pieces, tools, etc.  More screams.

Friend retrieved her immediately, but I was hyperventilating by then. I tend to take blunders personally, especially if they're mine.

Friend relates her own current  chapter of car breakdown stories, and I suggested that paper piecing would be just the ticket to calm her nerves.. whereupon we both fell about laughing hysterically. Dog looks at us as if wondering how she got landed with these awful people.

Then Handsome Son arrived as scheduled, chatted with friend, who went away to watch tennis and forget her auto woes, and we had tea and scones and a lovely visit. He admired the piecework piece, but marred the moment slightly by asking "So, is it going to BE something?"

So, once again alone, after son departed for shore, I resumed the struggle. And it's looking much better now.

 If friend hadn't arrived in medias res, I'd have taken pix of the mistake(s), not being one of those cheerful fibbers who pretend it's easy, work of a moment, heavily editing out all the setbacks and language breakdowns.  So you missed that part.

I've also changed my mind about the final section colors, now that I'm seeing the work to date. Couple more to stitch in tomorrow, then I cut and piece the outer ring. Hoping to get the pieces the right way out.

And in the middle of all this, postie arrived with my lovely new cutting mat, much easier than the surface I was on, and fits,as you see, right onto my lapdesk. Great timing.

Aside from that, Mrs Lincoln, just another productive and socially significant day chez Boud.