The 13-Square Tote Lesson Learned

I was gifted some really colorful and vivid weight 3 yarn. I wanted to see how quickly the different colors emerged so I decided to crochet a granny square. After one, I was on a journey and wanted to continue down the road to see all of the colors. With each new combination, I fell more in love. Before I knew it, I had finished the entire skein and had twenty 3.5" squares. Now what? So I put the question on my feed and everyone said a granny square tote.

Problem was that it is Stash Buster September and I didn't have any more of that same kind of yarn to join the squares. I ended up picking a solid black 3-weight yarn that I had in my stash to join 13 squares into the schematic that I found for a 13-bag tote. Got that finished and next thing I knew, I ran out of that yarn and didn't have any other 3-weight yarn that would support making the top of the bag and the handles. I did have 4-weight, and I decided to try using that with the same size hook that I used on the rest of the bag; initially, it seemed to be working out.

This is where I learned a valuable lesson: although it might have appeared to be working after I finished the first row, it took on a different look after subsequent rounds were made (see how the top of the bag is wider than the rest of the bag). I was planning to keep this bag for myself so I decided to keep going. Looking back, it has a bit of that charming Frankenstein's monster energy. It is made of bits and pieces of stash yarn, it might not be mathematically perfect, but I loved the process, it is still very functional, and my next bag will benefit from all this knowledge!