This is a pretty and practical little bag used by the heroine Cleo in Kari Trumbo’s novella, January Hope. I created this pattern to celebrate the release of the book.

Knit in a cotton/linen blend yarn, it’s just large enough for a cell phone and a small wallet. In the book, Cleo’s bag was a coral shade, but the bag I knit here is a chocolate brown color.

The lace pattern is the Double Rose Leaf stitch pattern originally published on page 195 in The Lady’s Assistant, volume 2 by Mrs. Jane Gaugain, published in 1847. (You can download a scanned .pdf of the book from Archive.org.) I altered the stitch pattern slightly for ease of working in the round.

I knit the bag with a circular base, but if you’d rather have a square base, I have included instructions. However, it may increase the amount of yarn needed for the bag.

I designed this pattern specifically to use only one skein of CotLin. However, to be certain you have enough yarn, my suggestion would be to knit the ties first, then knit the bag. If you run out of yarn before binding off the top edge, then either reduce the number of stockinette stitch rounds before bind off, or start the eyelet round right after round 2, 4, or 6 of the fifth repeat of the Double Rose Leaf pattern. Alternately, you could knit the bag and if you don’t have enough yarn for the ties, substitute silk cords or wide ribbons for the knitted i-cord ties, or you could try making crochet chain ties instead.