Contents: Accessories Pouch, Knitting Tote Bag, Essential Accessories (p. 5), Extra Accessories (p. 7)
You’ll probably need a pouch of some kind to organize and hold your knitting tools. Of course, you could go with the standard small-plastic-baggie approach. That’s worked for me for years. Other options: cosmetic pouches, travel pouches, etc. Instead, you could make your own felt, fabric, or vinyl knitting-accessories pouch. Here’s how:
1. Make one or two pockets from card stock or other stiff paper to hold your needles, needle threader, stitch markers, and other small items you don’t want to lose or let slip out of your pouch. Either tape or staple the sides of this little pocket (or pockets).
2. Make the pouch. Two approaches:
a. Use a no-fray fabric such as suede, vinyl, faux suede, or felt (wool or craft) and sew the side seams. To see how this would look, go to www.alldolledupkits.com/tool-kit.html. You can also spruce up your pouch with embroidery, applique, beadwork, etc.
b. Knit your own pouch, using a much smaller needle than is normally used for the yarn you’ve chosen. This will give you a very tight stitch, so things won’t fall through and out of your bag. With a knitted pouch, you’ll have to line the pouch or use baggies, mint tins, or other containers to make sure you don’t lose your small items.
3. Fill your stiff-paper pockets with your tiny items, and tuck these pockets and your other knitting accessories into your fabric pouch.
You’ll definitely need some kind of bag or other container to hold all your needles, all your other tools and accessories (in your accessories pouch, of course), and the yarn you need for your current project (or projects). For this bag, you have tons of options:
○ Use a snazzy knitting duffel, backpack, or rolling case with specialized pockets
○ Use a double-thick plastic or paper grocery bag, which you can replace whenever it gets holes — which will be often because of the pointy tips of your needles
○ Use a cloth or vinyl tote bag, which you may get for no cost if you attend a convention, or you may buy at tourist prices when you visit an exotic locale
○ Sew your own knitting bag: Use some see-through material to sew up a bag, so that you and everyone else can see the gorgeous project you’re working on.
- Clear vinyl can be a little stiff, and you have to be careful not to use stitches too close together, or you’ll create a serrated edge that might tear off.
- Tulle — your old bridesmaid dress, perhaps? — and other sheer fabrics can do a pretty good job for this purpose, especially if you double the thickness. To see a photo of a tulle bag, go to www.AllDolledUpKits.com/Images/ToteBag-x1200.jpg.
○ Knit your own knitting bag
An obvious problem arises when you think about knitting your own knitting bag: What do you do to prevent your knitting needles and other items from poking through the stitches in your bag? Here are a few ideas:
● Use small needles with 100% unbleached wool, knit a huge bag, and felt it (wash & agitate it in hot water) to get a somewhat biggish bag. Drawbacks:
○ You convert your nice elastic knitted fabric to a less elastic felted fabric.
○ For whatever size of bag you’re making, you’re creating a more dense fabric, so that you’re making the bag heavier, and you’re using more yarn.
● Use teeny-tiny needles for superbulky yarn. Drawbacks: You’ll spend hours struggling to pull each superbulky stitch through those teeny-tiny holes. If you have your heart set on doing this, it is doable — and just think of all your fellow knitters who will admire your perseverance and dedication!
● Knit the bag as normal, and then line it with tightly woven fabric.
○ Drawbacks: You lose the advantage of the elasticity of the knitting once you line it with inelastic woven fabric. Also, you have to sew when you could be knitting!
○ One idea: Knit the bag, then choose the fabric, cut it to the right dimensions, stitch it up, then stitch the fabric lining to the inside of the knitted bag.
○ Another idea: Choose the fabric before you knit the bag.
- Cut the fabric to be an inch or so wider than you want the bag to be.
- Fold down the top edge of the fabric.
- Create a set of holes in the fabric for picking up stitches: Either punch holes in the doubled-over edge or blanket-stitch all along that edge. Make sure that the number of holes corresponds to how many stitches you’ll be using for your knitted fabric.
- Pick up the stitches in the holes at the top edge of the fabric, and knit away until your knitted fabric is as long as the woven fabric.
- Sew up the seams of your woven fabric (with right sides together, as usual).
- Sew the bound-off edge of your knitted fabric to the other side of your woven fabric lining.
- Sew up the side seams of your knitted fabric.
● Lazy knitter’s knitting tote bag: Knit the bag using large needles and either bulky yarn or 2 strands of worsted-weight yarn. My knitted bag has both a flat knitted handle and a drawstring handle, so that I can bunch up the top of the bag if I want to, but I still have a long strap to throw over my shoulder if I’ve stuffed too much into the bag to pull the drawstring tight. To keep my little accessories and my needles from slipping through the huge holes in the bag, I use an accessories pouch and some large & small baggies inside my knitted bag.
Pattern for Lazy Knitter’s Banana-Fiber Knitting Tote Bag
Dimensions: 33" (84½ cm) (×2) wide × 16⅓" (41½ cm) (×2) high; my gauge was about 1½ stitches per inch (≈6 stitches per 10 cm) and averaged 2 rows per inch (≈8 rows per 10 cm)
Circular needles in U.S. size 35 (19 mm), 19 (15½–16 mm), and 17 (12–12½ mm)
1 or more stitch markers
1 lb., 10.2 ounces (742 g) of banana-tree fiber yarn — three 7-oz. (≈200 g) skeins and 5 more ounces: purple (1 dark, 1 medium), undyed (white), & rose, or whatever other colors you like; the skeins I received yielded 119–164 yards (107–149 m) of yarn
About using banana-tree fiber
● Drawbacks to using banana-tree fiber:
○ The hand-dyed yarn bleeds like crazy if it gets wet
○ It’s relatively inelastic, so it’s not as much fun to knit
○ Its hand-spun nature means that it’s super-thin in some places, so I wouldn’t trust it as a single-strand tote bag because the thin spots might break at a crucial moment
○ It’s super-thick in other places, so it’s heavier than it would need to be without the super-thick spots; some nubs also require extra tugging to pull them through your stitches
● Advantages to using banana-tree fiber:
○ It’s lustrous and shows off the dye well (unless, of course, it gets wet) — the close-up of the knitting is its true luster — no PhotoShop® trickery!
○ Come on, it’s banana-tree fiber — how cool is that!
○ Its inelasticity can be a plus for a tote bag because it won’t stretch out over time
○ It’s ecologically friendly in its use of decayed bark and leaves
○ It’s culturally friendly in providing income to Nepalese and other Asian women
Other fibers you might want to use instead of banana-tree fiber:
● Twisted mason line, from your local hardware store — it comes in hot pink, bright orange, and vivid yellow, as well as white
● 50/50 EcoSpun & cotton blend — available in a few colors because the cotton can be dyed and is then twisted with the white EcoSpun yarn made from recycled plastic bottles
● Actual plastic bags, which you can cut into strips, knot the strips together, and knit into a bag — talk about your eco-friendly knitting!
● Really any fiber you want to use, bearing in mind that it will be subjected to tough treatment from the inside out (with all those needles jostling around) and from the outside in (while being dragged across the doctor’s waiting room). You should probably save your angora and golden fleece yarn for another project.
1. Using 1 strand of dark purple & 1 strand of medium purple, cast 36 stitches onto U.S. size 17 needles.
2. Rows 1-7: Garter stitch — Either knit 36 back and forth across each row, or purl 36 across each row. Try to knit your first and last stitches a little loosely on the seventh row. From this point on, I’ll just say to knit each stitch, but if you prefer to purl (as I do), just go with it. (For me, it’s especially easier to purl when going around tight corners, but most knitters strongly prefer knitting rather than purling.)
3. Row 8:
a. Pick up 7 stitches from the side of the knitted fabric. As much as possible, pick these up so that they fit a little loosely on your needle, especially at the corners.
b. Pick up 36 stitches from the back of the knitted fabric. Pick up 7 more stitches from the other side of the knitted fabric.
c. This brings you back to your original side, and you should have 86 stitches on your needle. You have also formed a joined circle of stitches. Tuck a stitch marker onto your needle at this point.
4. Rows 9–10: Switch to U.S. Size 19 needle. Knit around through all 86 stitches. It’ll be a little tight going around the corners. It’ll help if you try to knit a little loosely at the corners.
5. Row 11: Switch to U.S. size 36 needle. Knit around through all 86 stitches. It’ll be quite tight going around the corners with the big bulky needles. This gets better, I promise.
6. Row 12: P36, *Make 1, P1, ... (×7), P36, *Make 1, P1, ... (×7).
a. Make 1 stitch: Hold up your left and right-hand needles. Look closely at the yarn between the stitches on these two needles. See the little bar of yarn that stretches out below the two stitches? With your right-hand needle, lift that bar up and onto your left-hand needle. Knit (or purl) that as if it were a regular stitch. Continue knitting the other stitches as usual.
b. These added stitches on the short sides will give you more ease to go around corners. You should now have a total of 100 stitches on your needle.
7. Continue knitting around and around. I happened to run out of dark purple yarn before I ran out of medium purple yarn, so I switched out the dark purple for the undyed (white) yarn. When I ran out of the medium purple yarn, I switched from it to the rose-pink yarn. You can design your colors as haphazardly as I did, or you can plan your switches more carefully, to make a series of stripes, blended stripes, or whatever makes your heart sing.
8. Row 34 (or whenever you start running out of yarn or you get sick of knitting or whatever!): Bind off 88 of your 100 stitches, leaving 12 on your needle.
9. Row 35: *K2tog (or P2tog) ... ×6, leaving 6 stitches on your needle.
10. Row 36: K1, K2tog, K2tog, K1; this leaves 4 stitches on your needle.
11. Rows 37-83 (or so): K4 on every row. Really, just knit this strap until you’re pleased with the length, run out of yarn, get sick of this yarn, or whatever.
12. Either bind off and attach the stitches to the other side of the bag, or attach the live stitches to the other side of the bag. Weave in your ends.
13. Create your braided drawstring: Measure the width of the bag, & triple that to get the length of your drawstring. Cut 9 strands of yarn this length. It will be very long. Tie a knot at one end, and start braiding it. I’ve discovered that this works well: Make 3 sets of triple strands so that you have one strand that looks distinctive (all 1 color or multicolor or whatever). Every once in a while, extract this distinctive strand from the tangled mess at the bottom of the braid. Let the other two sets of triple strand go apparently wild and crazy. If you keep freeing that distinctive set of strands, your tangle won’t get out of control. As you get to the end, you can easily untangle the other two sets of triple strands. By the way, it’s easier to braid if you tack down the starting end of the braid. I happen to have prehensile toes, so I weave the braid around my toes. You may find that absolutely revolting and prefer to tie it to a table leg, doorknob, or whatever.
14. Once you finish your braid, you’re ready to thread it through the top of your bag. Tie the two ends in a knot, and pull on the drawstring just beneath the strap on each side of your bag.
Essential accessories for all knitters, from beginners to experienced professionals!
