Easy-Peasy Cable-Knit Bag

In current knitting news, I tackled cables and discovered that they aren’t beyond me…at least the most basic cables anyway.  I’ll leave the intricate celtic knotwork types of cables for the pros .  As always, Youtube has a wealth of instructional videos on knitting cables without a cable needle…easy peasy once you see someone else do it.

I knit this bag in the round with some yummy chunky yarn I picked up at A.C. Moore last winter.  (pattern below if anyone wants to try it)  

Easy-Peasy Cable-Knit Bag:

I knit  this in the round starting from the opening off the bag and working down to the bottom.   I would just use whatever stash yarn you’ve got laying around and needles that would result in a close knit (just so there are no gaps between the stitches for any bag contents to slip through).  I used some chunky wool yarn with size 8 circular needles.

Cast on 120 stitches (or whatever you want as long as it is in multiples of 8 – my bag has 15 lines of cable running down it.)  Join to knit in the round.  Use a stitch marker to help keep track of the beginning of each round.

For the first 4 rounds I did the seed stitch for the edging:
row 1: knit 1, purl 1 (K1, P1) – repeat all the way around
row 2: purl 1, knit 1 (P1, K1) – repeat all the way around
row 3: same as row 1
row 4 : same as row 3

Begin cable pattern:
row 5,6,7 : K4, P4 (repeat around)
row 8 : Repeat  this pattern all the way around-
Slip 2 stitches onto a double pointed needle (size 8 or smaller) and bring them to the front of the knitting.  Knit the next 2 stitches and then knit the 2 stitches on the double pointed needle , Purl 4

Continue knitting rows 5-8 until the bag is as deep as you want it.  I repeated the pattern 10 times.

To finish, I went back to seed stitch (rows 1 & 2) for 4 rows and then switched yarns and knit another 4 rows of seed stitch.

To seam the bottom of the bag together I bound off  using the three-needle bind off (Another youtube video lesson).

The strap is an i-cord.

voila…all done