This design is for a felted knitting or craft bag (though I use mine as a general hand-bag too). It is embellished with Shibori techniques - I tied marbles into the knitted fabric prior to washing; these are removed afterwards, but they leave a series of endearing ‘bumps’ across the landscape of the work.

It takes 8 balls of Rowan Felted Tweed DK, in 3 shades. The knitting is all stocking stitch and it’s a simple knit: stripes of colour, simple increasing. Then bung it in the washing machine. That’s it!

I also embellished the bag and the pockets with straight forward embroidery.

There is a bonus needle case pattern included in the download. This can be made with the left-overs from the bag and you should have enough subject to tension. I embellished this with beads, knitted into the front cover of the case. These were quite happy in the wash at 60 degrees but you will need to be aware that some very brightly dyed beads are not colourfast in the wash.

I first published this bag in Shibori Knitted Felt but the yarn I knitted it in has been discontinued and so that design has been totally re-designed. All the numbers, shades, yarn used, needle sizes and felting temperature are different.

You will need:

8 balls of Rowan Felted Tweed DK in 3 shades (2, 2 & 4)
4mm needles
133 beads, size 6 (for the case, not the bag)
22 marbles
non-felting thread such as 4 ply cotton or fine string to tie in the marbles
a pair of handles
a sewing up needle