good news: the purse handles arrived on tuesday!
bad news: they are about twice the size that i envisioned them being (nevermind that the measurements were listed right on the website, but i was blinded by the extremely good price)

result: frogged the whole purse tuesday night, re-worked the entire pattern to make it MUCH bigger (so as not to look completely ridiculous on the larger-sized handles), and switched to US size 13 needles (had been using US size 10). i like the result so far. *sigh* i have knitted about 1/4 of the purse since starting over, and i suspect i'm going to have to go pick up another skein of yarn in order to finish.

the picture above is the progress on the new pattern next to the enormous handles - i think that it's going to be just fine. i should have taken a picture of the first version next to the handles to show you the comedy of the proportions, but i just started frogging in a blind panic.