Another Sweet Drawstring Pouch to Knit

Earlier this month I shared a few little travel knitting bag patterns, and the bag I’m sharing today wasn’t live when I was compiling that post but I think it would be a nice little bag to hold small things while you are traveling, or to use to hold any little things you need to wherever you are.

It’s called the Onigiri pouch because it looks like onigiri (a rice ball wrapped in a bit of nori, aka seaweed). The colors the designer, Dhiany Nanda, chose for their bag play up that description because the main part of the bag is an off white “rice” color, while the nori bit is gray, which looks a bit like seaweed.

Of course this would be a great stash-busting project in any colors. The original was worked in DK weight yarn, but you can use whatever you like to make a bag that’s a little bigger or a little smaller depending on your yarn weight and gauge.

The bag is worked from the bottom up in the round, and it is made double the length so that you can fold it inside itself to make the fabric stronger and thicker (and smooth on both the inside and the outside, which is nice). Once the main part of the bag is finished, you pick up stitches for the casing for the drawstring, then knit the nori separately and sew it on. The drawstring is an I-cord.

This little bag looks like a lot of fun and it includes lots of techniques like Judy’s Magic Cast On, increasing and decreasing, grafting, picking up stitches and making I-cord. But it’s also a small project so you can learn a lot of things fast and you don’t have to spend too much time with any of these techniques. For the most part it is just a lot of straight knitting.

You can grab a free copy of this pattern on Ravelry.

[Photo: Dhiany Nanda]

Fall will be here before we know it, and that means there are holidays coming right behind where we might be entertaining at home. It’s always fun to have a hand knit touch in your home for other people to see, and if you’re going to be in the kitchen all day you might as well have some nice knit dish cloths to use.

I love this little plaid hand towel from Darling Jadore. Use a little bit of leftover cotton yarn from another project for the plaid portion. It looks like the horizontal stripes are worked as you knit and the vertical stripes are done with duplicate stitch, making this a quick and easy project even newer knitters can make.

Combine garter stitch and an easy eyelet pattern worked sideways to make the Annette Dish Towel from Cluck Cluck Boots, which is meant to be reminiscent of flour sack towels. It calls for DK weight yarn and you can work it in one color or two (or even three!).

Add a little more texture with this set of kitchen towels from Whileberry Creative. They’re mostly worked in garter stitch with borders in easy knit/purl patterns, and you can work them in sport or worsted weight yarn.

Two of Wands Shop has another cute allover knit and purl pattern they call the Seersucker Textured Tea Towel. It’s an easy repeating pattern worked in worsted weight yarn, and there’s a chart in the pattern you can use, but don’t have to, if you want to practice knitting from a chart.

The Classic Cloth dish towel from Handmade Home by Connie is another one that can use a little leftover yarn in a contrasting color, or you could color block it our use stripes throughout the pattern. This one uses worsted weight yarn and another easy repeating knit purl stitch pattern.

If you like to hang your towel on the oven handle or elsewhere but it’s always falling off, try the Stay Put kitchen towel from Fancy Step Knits. This project is worked in garter stitch and includes a hole partway through so you can pull the towel through itself over a rod or handle. Stripes are optional but a nice addition.

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