Right in the middle of this past July, I decided that “Square G-1 Reimagined” was the perfect square for a crochet pandemic purse. It was both simple to make and intriguing to look at. For twelve days, I stayed completely focused on what I was doing—crocheting round after round, weaving in and trimming ends, and joining the squares in the same configuration as the Drops Design pattern for a bag called “Carry Me Home.”

Things were looking pretty good:

Then, I lost my way.

I was so very close to finishing it, I thought that it would take me some fraction of an afternoon to complete. Each day I thought “Today is the day I finish the pandemic purse.” But thinking of doing something and actually doing something are not the same.

The afternoons came, the afternoons went, summer ended, and fall began, and still the purse waited.

Then today, I decided it was time for this project to be finished. I was out of reasons, I was out of afternoons. The time was now, so after enlisting the aid of my husband whose job it was to hold the ends of the yarn while I twisted them until the twisted in upon themselves, I finally got all of the pieces to this crochet purse puzzle done:

All that was left was to put them together.

When I finally got to attaching the straps, it turned out that the twisting did not shorten the straps as much as I had thought it would, but after some additional knotting and trimming, the project was finally done:

I don’t know what makes some projects more difficult to finish than others. I don’t know what “thing” made it so resistant to being completed, but now it is, and I will once again move forward, one stitch at a time.