Finished Tea Set

Little Missy Grace had her 2nd birthday party this weekend, and after slaving over this project for weeks, I was able to hand it off. I followed the directions for the Fiesta Tea Set almost to the letter. The directions for the tea set were excellent. However, this strange little placemat was a pain in the ass. First of all, there was no picture of the placemat in the pattern instructions, so I didn't know if I'd like it at all. Then, after working through the fair isle (my first stab at fair isle, by the way), I discovered that the entire piece measured abut 3 inches wide. With a gift deadline looming, I asked the all-knowledgeable gals for help at my SnB on Thursday. They suggested ripping out and knitting stripes (nope, I'm not frogging my first fair isle), repeating the pattern until I achieve the desired length (no time for that), or knit a big swath of a solid color and do another fair isle section on the other end (good idea ... let's go with that). After knitting a swath of blue, I realized that the dimensions were completely off. The whole piece was too small to function as a placemat. So I threw in the towel and did some "free association" knitting and turning the damned thing into a bag. Mind you, the entire time, my feminist self was hollering about showing up to a 2 year old girls birthday party with a tea set and bag. But ... it's colorful. It's functional. She can throw it against the wall and it won't break. And we bought her a green wooden toy truck for Christmas. So there. Back off you overly p.c. self righteous inner voice.