Pattern Repeats

Why does the first repeat of a pattern take so blooming long, I spent most of the day yesterday doing the first repeat of a cushion cover, yet it only took a few hours in the evening to do the second repeat.

I am liking it so far, the colour on here is not far off real life, maybe a little lighter but not bad. The yarn is Jaeger Sienna 4 ply, which is 100% mercerised cotton and is really silky. The pattern is taken from one of my stitch dictionaries, The Ward Lock Guide to Knitting Stitches, repeating diamonds, love this book, I picked it up in a charity shop a couple of years ago.
Charity shops are a wonderful place to look for anything to do with knitting without breaking the bank, books, patterns, magazines, needles, yarn, you name it and it is out there somewhere lurking around waiting to be pounced on.  I am lucky to have four shops in the village where I live, one of them being exclusively for books, it is amazing what other people get rid of, and I never have to pay more than a pound for any type of book.
I never did make that hat for my colleague, but I did end up making three for me, so my head is kept splendidly warm at all times, and on all occasions.