Trouble in exchange-land

It turns out that the pattern that my LYS gave me for the circular felted tote was wrong and wrong. The first time it had to do with the intructions for the ends of rows. The second time had to do with the number of skeins needed. Oh, yes. As I was knitting along, I started to feel that awful, itching feeling you get when you look down at your skein and know you are going to run out of yarn. I wasn't even halfway done, but my yarn was more than half gone.

So I went back to my LYS and sure enough the udpated pattern that they found for me says that it takes two skeins. No wonder I didn't find any of these felted purses in blogland! The owner had another skein of Kathleen on hand in my colorway, but the tones were too different for my taste. I didn't want the front and back to look too disparate. So...I had to come up with something else.

The moment I had walked through the door, I had seen a bunch of Noni Bag Patterns blatantly lounging about on the coffee table. Having admired these from a far on the 'net, I set about looking at the construction of these purses. And of course I bought one pattern (really I wanted about 4 of them). So I give you Tote Exchange Project II: The Sassy Baguette!

I bought Karaoke to knit it with. Beautiful, no? But I should have read the pattern more carefully. The designer wants you to use two strands of 220 held together (on size 11 needles!). I don't want to do this with the karaoke. I would have to make sure they were starting at just the same place in their color striping and this would drive me crazy.

So I think I am going to make the largest version of the bag, but with a single a strand on US 10 needles. I also had the thought of alternating stripes of Karaoke and some other yarn I have. Hmmmm.... I am still undecided.....

So now what do I do with this large and lovely ball of Schaefer Kathleen? I was thinking maybe a scarf. Maybe My So Called Scarf? But the fabric might be just too thick with this wool. Any ideas?

I have had a pretty interesting weekend so far. On Friday night we had our end of the year party for work and though my intentions were noble, I ended up staying out way too late and drinking too much. That made it hard to get up the next morning at 5:30 to catch my ride to Utica where I went to see one of our guys from the boxing gym fight. And, wow, was that ever cool! And last night my friend from knitting had a going away party. It's so sad that she's leaving, but she's doing something great for herself. Today was supposed to be a rest day, but I have a date. Cha, cha, cha! So I won't get as much stuff done around the house as I'd like to have done.