Forge ahead or turn back?

The Tropical Clutch by Scarlet Taylor is a project that I have been excited about knitting since I first spotted it on the cover of Knit With Beads over five years ago.  In my usual slow-poke fashion, I let it sit in the Ravelry queue for several years, then finally bought the supplies to make it about six months ago, and I am just now getting started on it.

So far I have two observations: (1) Knitting with beads is sort of a pain in the ass.  (2) So far, my clutch looks very little like the lovely one that graces the cover of the book.  So, here’s the question: do I start over, give up, or just forge ahead?

Here’s the problem:

This is what the book says the beaded fabric looks like:

And here is what mine is looking like so far:

Do you see any resemblance between the two?  Because I don’t.  That’s not to say that mine isn’t going to be cute, but it just doesn’t look like the picture which I have loved all these years.

In favor of starting over: I think there are possibly two things I could try differently.  First, the pattern recommends a size 6 needle, but I needed a size 7 to get gauge.  BUT, the author has you test gauge in stockinette stitch, but that stitch doesn’t appear anywhere in the project, so, really, my gauge swatch is sort of worthless.  Maybe I’d be better off with the smaller needle?  The second thing I could change is that the instructions for the stitch pattern are kind of vague as to whether you are supposed to wrap the yarn around the needle once or twice.  I chose to do it once, but I could go back and do it twice and see what happens.  Though, I really don’t think that is the problem.  I think it may be the gauge issue.

In favor of forging ahead: I’ve already got a good portion of it knitted up, and it doesn’t necessarily look bad, just not like the picture.  No one who sees the finished purse is going to know what it was supposed to look like…. right?  (But *I* will know!!)

In favor of giving up: So far, it’s not a super fun knit.  As I already said, knitting with the beads is a pain in the ass and this is also going to require a lot of extraordinary finishing work down the road, which we all know how much I love to do.  But I HATE the feeling of being a QUITTER!!

What to do, what to do!!??