Knitting Bag-Ta Da!

I finished up my knitting bag last night!

From the outside, it looks pretty much like every other tote I've ever made. It's about 17 inches wide by 11 inches tall, with a 5 inch bottom. Did I mention before that it's Amy Butler home decor weight fabric? It is. And it's awesome because I didn't have to use any interfacing. I am not in love with interfacing.

But this time I added a zip top to keep all of my knitting stuff safe. Nobody needs to lose their scissors or darning needles, right?

The zip panels-they almost killed me. It's not that they were hard-it's that I had to make up how to do it. I am certain directions exist in abundance on the world wide web, but it seemed so easy until I got into it. And by then, it was too late. There were details I should have worked out in advance, but I didn't know about them until I got to them. So the two ends of the zipper aren't identical, but it's my bag and I sure don't care.

Here's the inside (I know-you needed me to clarify what you were looking at). I sewed pockets in so I can keep stuff organized. So the pocket you see here is for a pattern. Right now, it has a magnetic board with my Central Park Hoodie chart and pattern. I made the pocket big enough to fit 8 1/2 by 11 papers.

And on the other side, there are tool pockets. I have my cable needles, a gauge check/ruler thing, scissors, my circular needle bag, a tape measure, etc. I also sewed a few pockets to accommodate a pair of straight needles, a set of double pointed needles, and my cell phone.

I feel like I need to sew a matching tiny bag to hold things like stitch markers and darning needles. They would fit in the pockets, but it seems that, if I need one of these tools in the middle of my knitting, it would be easier to grab a little coin purse thingy than to root around in various pockets for something so small. So I will probably whip that up next.

I love how I can put extra yarn and my project in the middle and they are safe there.

I want to use this for a few weeks to see if there is anything I would change, and then I told my mother in law I would make her a knitting bag, too.