How to Make a Felted Knitting Needle Bag for Autumn

Knitters love to be organized, and keeping their needles together in a neat and tidy way can sometimes be a challenge. This quick and easy felted bag pattern is a great autumn project that helps you practice your felting skills as well as create a fun, seasonal pouch for the tools of the trade, your knitting needles. For yourself or someone in your knitting group, you have endless opportunities for creativity and can make this bag as simple or adorned with fall patterns.

Things You'll Need

• Lion brand wool yarn in autumn colors: Scarlet, Cocoa, Lemongrass, Pumpkin and Autumn Sunset (you’ll need 3 balls in the base color, Pumpkin)
• Orange or brown ribbon
• Knitting needles size US 8
• Embroidery thread: Black, Dark Green and Brown

Instructions

Knit the Bag

1. Cast on 90 stitches in Pumpkin.

2. Knit in stockinette stitch (knit one row, purl the next) until the piece measures about 38 inches.

3. Cast off.

Knit Pieces to Decorate

1. 

   Think about the design you want to use to enhance your autumn themed knitting needle bag. You might choose to do a variety of colored autumn leaves, but you can do anything from pumpkins to Indian corn.

2. Cast on about 30 stitches in any other autumn colored wool yarn.

3. Knit in stockinette stitch until the piece measures about 10 inches and cast off.

4. Repeat with other colors of wool you will want to use to create autumn design on the outside of the needle bag.

Putting it all Together

1. Felt all the pieces together, including the bag material, and all the smaller pieces you’ll use to decorate the bag.

2. Block and dry all the pieces as indicated on the yarn labels.

3. Cut the bag material so that it measures about 25 by 12 inches. Fold up the bottom about 10 inches to form a pocket and sew sides with a coordinating color of embroidery thread.

4. 

   Mark the pocket at 5 inches and sew through both the pocket and the front to form a division in the bag. Your piece will resemble a school paper folder at this point.

5. Sew pocket separations every two inches to form pockets for different needles.

6. Take your smaller felted pieces and scrap materials and cut out a simple fall leaf pattern. Enhance leaves with embroidery thread and attach to outside of bag.

7. Tack a length of orange or brown ribbon to the outside middle of the bag so that when you fold the bag you can tie the ribbon to close it. Alternately, you could also sew a small Velcro tab to the inside of the bag on either inside end of the bag to seal.

Tips & Warnings

• This is a great basic pattern that you can use to make any knitting needle bag a bit fancier and more fun. Great to make as gifts for other knitters.

Resources

• Lion Brand Yarn website