Pattern description from Weekend Knitting: “This handy bag is sized for multiple uses. Toss it in your purse or backpack to hold pens and pencils, makeup, knitting notions, or other smallish items, or carry it on its own like a clutch. This is an especially appealing project if you’re in the mood to work from your stash rather than buy new yarn since it puts the small balls of yarn leftover from other projects to an effective and appealing use. To make the bag, you simply knit a striped tube with whatever yarns you have around, as long as they are all more or less the same gauge and most of them will felt. To finish, you seam the bottom to make a bag shape, felt in the washing machine, and sew in a zipper.”

Finished Measurements: Approximately 10” wide by 6” high after felting.

Yarn: An assortment from your personal stash.

Needles:

• One 24” circular (circ) needle size US 10.5 (6.5 mm).
• Change needle size if necessary to obtain the correct gauge.

Notions: Stitch marker, yarn needle, one 9” zipper (prewashed), sharp-pointed sewing needle and matching sewing thread for attaching zipper.

Note about Gauge: “Because the bag will be felted, exact gauge is not critical for this project.”

Notes from Weekend Knitting:

• “Guidelines for Choosing Yarn: Wool, mohair, and alpaca generally felt well as long as they have not been treated in any way to make them machine-washable. machine-washable yarns will not felt. If necessary, double or triple fine yarns to match the gauge of the other yarns being used for the project. Synthetic novelty yarns do not felt but can be used as effective accents in a felted project if they are incorporated carefully. Here are two strategies: Work a novelty yarn together with a strand of a feltable yarn, making sure the two yarns together match the gauge of the other yarns in the project; or work the novelty yarn on its own, but for only one or two rows, and surround it on either side by at least two rows in a yarn that will felt.”
• “To minimize the jog where the colors change, work one round with the new color, remove marker, lift the old-color stitch below the next new-color stitch up onto the left-hand needle, and k2tog (lifted stitch of old color and first stitch of new color), replace marker. The beginning of the round will move 1 stitch to the left at each color change.”
• “Prewash the zipper to avoid distortion caused by shrinkage after it is sewn into the bag.”