I hope my notes help others avoid heartache! Errors throughout pattern as usual. You really have to be on alert when working her patterns, otherwise there will be lots of frogging and redoing.

Used a 5mm hook instead of 5.5mm.

Not blocked ~7.25”/square (with necessary adjustments) (I think the owl square is still slightly bigger than the magnolia square even after adding a round to the magnolia square).

Designer makes an argument that the squares have the same number of stitches, but she’s clearly mistaken. The photos that she uses as proof that the magnolia square only has 17 sts shows that she actually skipped one of the actual stitches in her count (and it’s not the middle ch 1 st, but an actual st). The owl square has 17 sts per side (not including the middle stitch) and the magnolia square as 18 sts per side (not including the middle st).

She says not to add a round to the magnolia square, but it’s absolutely necessary. I added a round of sc skipping the middle corner st and ch’g 2. Still, the owl square is bigger.

On the magnolia square, When she says LAST she means FIRST and when she says FIRST she means LAST.

If only she had good testers… Or maybe she does and she doesn’t make the corrections they point out to her. The latter is most likely what happens (if she even has them tested).

Owl square (pieces unattached) .81 oz
Magnolia square (with additional round) .64 oz

UPDATE: 1/24/25
This will be another WIP project I will get done soon for the Finish or Frog / Early 2025 challenge. Not sure yet what to do with them, but I’m determined to get them off my WIP shelf.

hayjay14 gave me the idea to create a little lined pouch from her March MCAL 2024 mystery challenge here: https://www.ravelry.com/discuss/mystery-220-more-or-less/...

I think that’s what I’ll do, although I’ll have to do the lining separately since I only brought the squares and yarn with me to work today.

For the strap, instead of crocheting something (unless I finish joining them together quickly enough on my lunch break), I think I’ll make an i-cord using the Tulip i-cord maker.

UPDATE: FINISHED! 1/26/25
I am super pleased with how this project ended up. It started as cute squares that were a nightmare to make, and now I have a functional and cute project bag.

I couldn’t find the right fabric for a liner, so I made the squares big enough to cover this new canvas bag that I’ve had for a few years.

I used this blog post by Polkadotchair to help me figure out the leather straps. Very helpful. I decided on 30” straps for mine. I’m so proud of myself! I did use a little hot glue in addition to the rivets because I made the top hole so close to the edge of the bag.