Today, the only driving I did was to move my car from the driveway and park on the street so the workmen could more easily come and go from the house and do the work that needed doing.

Once the hub-bub of getting things done subsided, I renewed my efforts to finish the bag that is an homage to Dunkin’ Donuts.

To that end, I grabbed one of the pink threads from a 24-pack of embroidery floss that I bought several years ago, and began sewing the lining in place.

For reasons I don’t understand, this made the telephone (which had been silent except for one call to confirm a repair call) ring. After half-an-hour of fielding various calls, I was once again able to turn may attention to the lining, and before I knew it, all four sides were sewn into place:

Now that I have lined my second purse, my mindset is similar to that of a former smoker who doesn’t understand or forgive anyone who smokes. As someone who formerly and steadfastly refused to line my crocheted project, I have very quickly forgotten what the big deal was.

Having said that, I was itching to get back to the crochet part of this project, so I grabbed my 3.5mm hook and some brown Red Heart Super Saver yarn and read the rest of the directions for the bag. The directions, such as they were, weren’t making complete sense to me, but at some point, I realized that I only needed to understand the next step (which I did), and I found that when I had completed that step, the rest of the directions now made sense to me:

Now what is left is to crochet what is termed in the pattern the “mouth” of the bag, then wrap that around the handles I purchased, and whipstitch one edge of crochet to another.

Part of what prevented me from lining a crochet project for over a decade is my desire to get everything exactly right the first time I do it. Such perfection is seldom necessary, and my attitude has prevented me from learning and mastering skills that are very helpful to my craft.

One of the best parts of the ascendance of social media and its convergence with the DIY movement is the ability of individual crafters to share what they know. To that end, I find younger crafters are a tremendous source of information and inspiration.

They seem to have no sense at all that there is anything that can’t be done, so they do it, and enrich us all in the process.