Arghh. This bag is just as horrible to make as everyone says. Took me four days to complete the project. The first day was spent starting and re-starting the bag, trying to figure out what I was supposed to do. In the end, I just sort of winged the turn around sections. It all worked out in the end since the bag’s construction is forgiving (thankfully).
While I don’t particularly like the mesh design, the bag is huge. Much larger than anticipated. Not sure how large it’s supposed to be since I decided to use up the rest of the second skein of Sage. I am a little disappointed that my finished bag doesn’t look like the photo. I had wanted a more oblong shaped bag. On the other hand, it does hold a lot of stuff.
Erm, the colours are not as planned. I had wanted brown handles, but due to a misunderstanding of where the handles and front end up, used yellow. I thought I’d do the sides in yellow and the front/handles in brown, but settled on a uniform yellow. Of course, I then had to outline the handles, so I could still use the brown.
In the end, I wondered why I didn’t just go with white like I had wanted in the first place. Oh, well. I think the finished product does look sort of like a giraffe grazing on the grasslands, which is kind of funny. ^__^ I had to really hold myself back from adding some embroidered flowers to the yellow bands…
One of the most frustrating parts of the pattern is how the author describes the stitch method instead of just writing TR2TOG. It’s far more confusing that way.