This past week, I followed this tutorial to make a star bag. It just seems like a granny square with extra steps, right? Wrong. Plus, this tutorial omits a few integral tips that I have since learned the hard way from the family of failed stars I’ve accidentally created. First of all, we have the issue of the size of the star that this tutorial creates.

Looks fine, right? First try is always going to be a little wonky. My star was a square at first, one point was always longer, and one was always fatter. But it’s a good size, right?

Hello? I ended up turning it into a throw pillow. I’ve already lost it amongst it’s brethren on my bed. As a purse? This could maybe fit my phone, some Chapstick, and a receipt if I was willing to push the bounds of bursting at the seams.

The blog post tagged below includes tips and tricks I learned, encouragement and guidance on how to at least double these initial instructions, and newly acquired knowledge on how to turn a disappointment of a project into a momentarily satisfying throw pillow.