A Bright Red Market Bag

As well as going crazy over knitting the last two years, I have crazy phases about what I knit. It’s either all vests, all baby hats and now it’s all market bags. Remember those bags years ago we’d take to the shop to put our groceries in? They were quite small and easy to transport and yet could stretch to hold an incredible number of items. Well I’ve just finished my first one.

Although not as large as one of the old fashioned market bags, it’ll be perfect for me to take to my weekly scrabble game with the girls as I’ll use it to carry my keys, wallet and mobile phone rather than putting them in my knitting caddy. My bag is also a bit denser so there’s less likelihood of anything falling through the holes.

As per usual, I found this free knitting pattern on Ravelry and it’s called the Ilene Bag. The pattern calls for Louet Euroflax which is a 5ply 100% linen. As I didn’t have this yarn, I substituted it for this bright red Patons Bluebell which is also a 5 ply yarn and has a lovely crepe texture. I bought a bundle of this Bluebell about a year ago on Ebay. One thing I like about Bluebell is it stretches so easily so is ideal for this little bag.

I used 5 dpns (4mm) when picking up the stitches on either side of the rectangular stockinette stitch base and until I had completed a few of the pattern rows and then I changed to 4mm (40cm) circulars needles.

Here is the finished Ilene Bag…

I have put a small paperback book in the bottom of the bag to show the stretch in the handle. You need to make sure you don’t knit the handle too long as it will stretch with any weight in the bag.

A 300g hank of fingering yarn.

The base is nice and thick so nothing can poke through.

An empty bag…

Oh my goodness, I’ve just had a quick look on Ravelry to find some more market bag patterns and there are sooo many available that I don’t know which one to pick! Here’s just a few:

Lacy Knit Market Bag

Hexagonal Market Bag

Let’s Go Shopping Market Bag

The String Bag

Looks like I’m going to have a nice selection of bags to tote around!

I’ve just bought some Lily Sugar ‘n Cream 10ply cotton from Bubs 2 Grubs Knitting in Western Australian. This is an American cotton and is difficult to source in Australia. I’ve seen so many patterns for dishcloths that use this cotton so I look forward to receiving my 16 balls next week. Four balls of four different colours.

Until next time…

Melanie