One keeper, one frogger...

Getting a head start on next winter, I decided to start working on a little drawstring bag with a snowflake design.  The design is one of three patterns in the Christmas Gift Bags set.  And to tell you the truth, I'm just about ready to call it quits.

I've honestly never had so much trouble crocheting colorwork before.  I'm realizing (with this project) I'm not a fan of doing colorwork while crocheting on the front and back sides of a piece (as opposed to crocheting only on the front side  - which requires crocheting in the round).  But to make matters worse, I seriously complicated this project by double-stranding my cotton thread.  Which means I'm working from four balls of cotton, which takes a good deal of effort to not tangle up as I work.

Sigh.

I see mistakes in my work above and while the design is small and it would seem a simple thing to just frog it and re-crochet the design, I now know (from experience) just how difficult this yarn is to keep untangled.  As sad as it makes me, I feel like I should just cut my losses, cut the yarn - throw away what I've done so far and start over with some other yarn.  I'm beginning to contemplate starting over and crocheting this little bag in the round, and eliminate most of the headache that I'm struggling with trying to crochet this by turning my work. What pains me most is that below that snowflake design is the other half of the bag.   That's a lot of cotton thread to just throw away.  

Sigh.   I'll think on it some more before I do anything.  (ETA:  I'm back to report that I did manage to unravel the bag and only had to cut the thread once.  It's all usable again, so I count this bag a learning experience and I'm going to try to crochet the pattern in the round.  Hopefully, I'll have an update next week.)

~~~~~

To get back to my happy place, let me show the third mandala I crocheted a few weeks ago:

The Vernal Season Mandala from the book, Modern Crochet Mandalas, was easy and gratifying to make.

BUT, it is the third mandala I've made from this book that had errors in the written pattern.  By the time I got to this pattern, though, I was relying heavily on the diagram so the mistake was a quick find.  But then someone else told me  they had found at least one error in a diagram in this book so there goes my thought that relying on the diagrams will get a person through.

Considering the errors I've encountered, I, personally, would not purchase this book (not at retail price), but I do recommend trying the patterns if you have access to the book through, say, the library or even interlibrary loan.  (That's how I got my hands on this book.   It's one of the few current books on crochet my library has.)   The designs are pretty and after working a couple of these, I have found the hardest stitches become intuitive.

And that's all from me today!  To see what other YOPpers are up to, visit our group on Ravelry.