French Market Boo Boo: Sophie to the rescue

Knit God #1: "That Mrs. R. is spoiled rotten. She gets so many RAOKs, and she just got a new car."

Knit God #2: "Yup, she sure is spoiled."

Knit God #1: "We should do something to rain on her parade."

Knit God #2: "Cool! What did you have in mind?"



Sigh. As you may have read earlier on this blog, I was making the French Market Bag as a gift. To be presented on Sunday afternoon. On Saturday at noon I pulled the FMB out of the washer. It felted beautifully (everything they say about Cascade 220 Quattro is true. I love the stuff.) Sadly, the lovely felting could not compensate for my mistake in placing the handles. So, this mess is what I'm left with.









This is how it is meant to look.







What happened, you ask? Well, I knit the bottom in a rectangle rather than in the round. The pattern gives instructions for both methods. I didn't feel like wrestling with dpns to make the round, so I knit a rectangle and picked up the stitches instead. But, I forgot to mark the corners. When it came time to make the handles, I just willy nilly started binding off, with no regard to where I was in the shape. Hence, the misshapen mess. Ugh.



Remember, at this point it was noon on Saturday and the gift was due on Sunday afternoon. What's a knitter to do? Pout, of course! Once I got that out of my system, I remembered the pattern for the Sophie bag. And, just the day before, I had purchased 2 skeins of Noro Kureyon to make a hat. There was no way around it - the hat had to be sacrificed in favour of the Sophie. I knit practically non-stop from 3 pm Saturday to 1 am Sunday until only the handles remained. Got up at the crack of dawn on Sunday to make the icords, then felted her. She took 3 rounds in the washing machine, and turned out like this:











Not bad, eh? Sophie was delivered, along with the Booga Bag, to a happy pair of princesses (a.k.a. my nieces).









By the way, as I was motoring along on Saturday night, I started to worry about having enough yarn. The stores are not open on Sundays here, so I was genuinely concerned. (Um, to be more accurate, it is fair to say I was "freaking out"). In the end, I did have some yarn left over. How much, you ask? 9 inches of yarn left, to be exact. Whew. That was a close one!