Will I Ever Finish This Bag!?
I purchased Simple Knits for Sophisticated Living by Barbara Albright in January and totally due to the fact that I loved the pattern for this bag! Since then, I have manged to make a few other things out of it and still have not completed this project. The reasons why are:
1. I loved the colors in the picture, a very pale sky/turquoise blue and black. I could not for the life of me find a similar color with a similar gauge in a yarn store. (What I should have done from the start was just order the 20 bucks a skein yarn that they use in the pattern online (Fiesta Kokopelli in Turquoise Trail and Black Mesa).
2. So, I am not smart and purchased a similar yarn (Green Mountain Worsted which I love), but has a slightly smaller gauge. To my dismay, I had to have 60 stitches on each side of the bag (instead of 40) to get the correct gauge. Hence, the bag taking me a lot longer than it should.
3. I had to order more yarn offline since the store I purchased it at refused to order me more (If you are interested in hearing which store in Boston has peeved me off on numerous occassions, email me!). It is now taking 4 skeins of blue yarn instead of the 2 it should have only required. So, lets do the math... If I had just purchased the original yarn, 3 skeins at 20 each = 60 bucks. The yarn I am using now requires 5 skeins at 12.50 each = MORE MONEY THAN THE ORIGINAL! Not that I am a cheapo yarn user, but it would have saved me so much frustration to use the proper yarn instead of worrying about money.
So, the lesson of the day is, buy awesome yarn and don't worry about the price! No, seriously, I do use good yarn most of the time, and I am still using awesome yarn, but sometimes you should just give in and splurge (especially when its something you are making for yourself!)
posted by Dani @ 8:02 PM
3 comments
3 Comments:
Ha! I know THAT feeling too well. BUT either way, more stitches or not, the color you picked out as a replacement is still really nice!!
Can you tell me what they did for those straps? I'm ALMOST finished with a TON (over 11 feet done, maybe 4 more to go?) of i-cord for my bag of epic proportions and originally I was going to double, or triple braid the i-cord and attach. But the way they did that with it running underneath looks like such a GREAT idea!!
Keep at it, you'll be so happy when it's done =)
Hi Dani - sorry the bag is taking on a life of it's own, but you'll love it when it's done. :)
By the way - the next time you need a certain Fiesta Yarn, let me know. They are based in Albuquerque and I live 15 minutes from their one & only outlet store. The sell "seconds" for several dollars less than the "good" skeins in the stores. Plus, their "seconds" are usually skeins with too much yarn in them! Anyway, it's worth a look just in case they'd have what you need. :)
oh man I feel your pain. The number of times that I've done that too or worst, went with another yarn and regretted putting in that work to wish that I had done it in the yarn that I had originally saw it in.
Fiesta yarns are gorgeous but hard to find and very expensive, but in the end you kind of get what you pay for.
Sure it doesn't help to know that we all do that.
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