Use Welts to Add Color to a Circular Bag

One of the easiest ways to use a little bit of leftover yarn in another knitting project is to add stripes. The Lollipop Crossbody Bag from Ainur Berkimbayeva gives you a chance to use leftover yarn (or new yarn for that matter) in several colors, or in one color if you prefer.

Her version shows three contrasting colors but there are six welts, so you could do most of a rainbow, or an ombre with several shades of the same color, or even just a single color or one multicolored yarn to see what would happen.

The pattern has options to work the bag with fingering, sport or DK weight yarn, and I imagine you could do it with worsted as well. It’s written for one size but since it’s worked from the center out you can just keep increasing in the same manner and adding tucks regularly to make the bag whatever size you like.

It also includes the option of adding a zipper and a felt lining to make it more functional as a bag. I also think this one would be fun to try making larger than described and felting it to make it more solid.

The designer suggests a wool yarn or something with good elasticity for making the welts. The original was worked with a wool blend on the welts and a cotton base. It requires between 155 and 185 yards (or 140-170 meters) of yarn depending on the weight of yarn you are using. The pattern includes a video tutorial and a color planner to help you figure out how you want to stripe your welts.

This project looks like a lot of fun and would be a great little summer bag, especially with bright candy colored stripes. You can get the pattern on Ravelry.

[Photo: Ainur Berkimbayeva]

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I can’t resist a pattern that’s both useful and a little silly, and that’s exactly how I feel about the Rybka pouch pattern from the delightfully named Rat and Sea Witch.

I know you’re going to ask, because I did, too. Rybka means little fish in Polish. (And because you’re also probably going to ask, Rat and Sea Witch comes from people’s attempts to say the designer’s name, Ratasiewicz, which if you say it fast kind of sounds like rat and sea witch.)

It’s easy to make a little fish bag in different sizes to suit your needs. The pattern has specific instructions for an Airpods Pro case and a pencil case, but you could change the length easily to hold more stuff, and change the size in general by working with a different weight of yarn.

The pattern calls for sock yarn and mohair held together to make a fingering weight gauge, but you could try it with heavier yarn and see what size bag you end up with.

Whatever size you make it, this looks like a fun project for holding trinkets or everyday items. The mouth of the fish is the mouth of the bag, and it closes with a drawstring that is also the strap. I wonder, too, if you could make one of these with a small clasp frame that could be the fish’s mouth and then you could just work I cord straps that would attach to the sides of the fish.

I could also see stripes, or fish of different colors to use up your yarn leftovers. How about a sunglasses case with a little loop to attach to your bag? Once you start thinking about all the ways you could use a fish-shaped bag in your life, I think you’ll see that you probably need more than one.

If you make one of these I would love to know how it went!

You can grab a copy of the pattern on Ravelry.

[Photo: Rat and Sea Witch]

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