Beach Bag Knitting Patterns

What makes a good beach bag? It is a bag that’s big enough to hold everything you need? A replacement for your purse that can get sandy? Something with holes for carrying your shell collection? This roundup of beach bag knitting patterns has a little bit of all of that.

If size is important to you, check out the Portside Bag from Knit And Crochet Evr Aft. This big striped bag is worked in the round with faux seams added for extra stability. The pleated sides add storage space, and I-cord handles are easy to knit, too. It calls for DK weight yarn.

There’s also the Pensacola Tote from Apple and Acorn Co, a basic striped sack that looks like a shopping bag. This one also uses DK weight yarn and you can stash bust to make stripes or keep it solid.

The Boho Beach Bag from Pickles Knits Oslo is kind of a cross between a tote bag and a purse replacement. The designer calls it a “bohemian stitch pattern” that includes elongated stitches, making it quick to knit in cotton yarn. It comes in two size options.

Add a little bit of lace to make your beach bag more sand friendly with the Salt Life Beach Bag from Laura Aylor. this pattern, available on Ravelry, calls for DK weight yarn and has a diamond lace pattern on the side panels.

For even more lace, try the Shell We Beach Bag from Knitting Tipsy (also on Ravelry). This one has a garter stitch base and allover lace shell pattern on the body. It uses worsted weight yarn and has straps that are knit separately for extra stability.

And if you’re looking for allover lace, try the Lanta bag from Paulastrickt. The tote bag shape is great for the beach or elsewhere, and it’s worked from the bottom up in the round with double knit straps. The pattern says it’s advanced but if you have a little lace experience I think this one would be fine for you.

Lots of craft designers are understandably frustrated about the proliferation of AI “designed” patterns and photos of projects that have no basis in reality. People who don’t know how to tell if a project is AI are often also frustrated when they see a picture for something but there’s no pattern because it’s not real, or they buy a pattern that doesn’t actually explain how to make the thing or ends up looking totally different from the picture.

Some designers have taken it upon themselves to try to make some of those AI patterns that we see online, often with hilarious results.

Katherine Foster was inspired by a famous AI elephant to make what she calls “AIlephant,” which is now a free knitting pattern on Ravelry.

Her prototype uses worsted weight yarn, but you can use whatever yarn you like to make different sizes of elephants.

The elephant features a cable running down the trunk and a different cable pattern on the back. It’s worked in pieces that are joined and stuffed as you go. It uses German short row shaping on the body and includes written instructions as well as a chart for the cable patterns.

Reading through the pattern, it sounds a little fiddly, which makes sense because it was designed to look like a pattern that isn’t real. But it’s doable, as evidenced by the handful of projects you can find on Ravelry. The ears on her version aren’t quite as big and round or maybe don’t sit in quite the same place as the AI version (which if you haven’t seen it there’s a photo of that on the projects page, too). But it’s a pretty honest replica of a dishonest photo, and a really cute elephant in its own right.

If you make this one I would love to hear about it!

You can grab the free pattern on Ravelry.

[Photo: Katherine Foster]

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