In the aftermath of finishing my state fair project, nothing is going quickly, and so the saga of the unfelted fat bag continues.

My first indication that today would not unfold as I had imagined was the sight that greeted me when I emerged dressed and ready to take my dog Clooney on a walk:

While I was able to (in short order) easily wind the ball of yarn back to it’s pre-romp state, it seemed to have set the tone for the day: I would have no genuine catastrophes or disasters, but nothing was going to come easy.

Having finished work on the body of fat bag, including having sewn the lining in, I had thought that the gathering and adding of the edges and straps would go quickly and smoothly, and shortly after lunch, I began the work of gathering the “shorter” edges of the bag.

The gathering itself was no problem, and I didn’t even make any errors, fatal or otherwise, when I crocheted the next 9 rows, but as I finished up the tenth row, I decided that before I went any further, I really needed to better understand just exactly what I was doing, and after looking more closely at the photos of the three bags that are serving as inspiration for mine, I realized, I had made a mistake I could not live with, and I had to frog the gathered edge.

After frogging, I began crocheting again, this time gathering the “longer” edges of the bag. I finished one, and then almost finished the other:

The project is not yet done, and it has not gone quickly.

I have made myriad missteps along the way, and I have had to frog and refrog to get the body of the bag as I wanted it to be (a square with the same number of stitches on each side); however, my decision to experiment on an unfelted version of the felted fat bag I wanted to make has turned out to be a good idea because the hurry-up mindset I had when I began the felted version of this project has followed me through every step of the unfelted version.

Maybe tomorrow, I will be able to move forward with more care and deliberation which will, I hope, lead to fewer errors, and maybe, just maybe, I will be able to declare the unfelted future fat bag done and use the knowledge gained to finish the felted version.