Easy Lace Knitting: Knit a Classic Market Bag

1. Intro: Have you ever wanted to start knitting lace, but think it's a very complex technique? Maybe you're looking for a quick, practical summer project or an idea for a knit that makes a thoughtful gift. If you answered 'yes' to any of those questions, this class is for you. Hi. My name is Izabela Grzybek. I'm a maker, knitwear designer, and teacher. I focus on designing easy accessories and home decor pieces that are great for gifting. Apart from publishing my patterns independently, I have also been working with yarn companies and book and magazine publishers such as Making Stories, Laine, and Sewrella Yarn. This class is a great introduction to knitting lace, and you'll be able to take those skills and work more complex lace in your next projects. At the end of this class, you'll walk away with something you can use every day, a cotton lace bag. It's a really versatile, practical, and eco friendly item that will last you for a long time. You can take it grocery shopping, to a farmer's market or even to a beach. This class is created for knitters who are familiar with the basics. If you're a total beginner, I recommend you take one of my intro classes first. You'll need some supplies to follow along with the class. Worsted weight yarn, two pairs of needles, and a few notions. When you watch this class, you'll receive the class reference book, which contains tools and supplies listed with linked options, tips on modifications of the bag, a few alternative stitch pattern options, and a copy of written pattern of the bag shared in the class. We'll start the class with talking about necessary tools and supplies. Then we'll cover the construction of the bag so that you're clear on the purpose of each element every step of the way. Next, we'll cover a few easy ways to customize your bag. Then in the practical part of the class, we'll knit the bag step by step. I'm really excited to bring you a class that will help you craft such a practical knit project. That's a great example of slow living values. See you in the first lesson! 2. Class Project and Resources: The project in the class will be to knit your own market bag. Follow along with me to create your bag through the practical lessons. You can also apply some small modifications following the tips in the Bag Construction and Customizations lesson to personalize your bag. Share a photo of your finished bag or your work in progress as a project. To do that, go to the projects and resources section. Click the Create Project button, and upload your project photo as a cover image. Remember to download the class guide, which contains some tools and supplies options, and as well as some guidance on possible bag modifications. Let's now go through the tools and supplies you will need to knit your own bag. 3. Tools and Supplies: Let's quickly go over the tools and supplies you will need to knit the lace market bag. First, you will need some worsted weight yarn, approximately 220 meters, so around 240 yards. I will be using 24/7 cotton from Lion Brand Yarns, two skeins of this yarn will be enough to knit the bag. You can also choose different yarn. Use the required length as a hint, how much yarn to buy because different yarns may have a bit different yardage per skein or different skein weights. Choose fibers like cotton, linen, hemp, cotton and linen blends. These fibers will hold well in use. Don't knit the bag out of wool or delicate fiber like bamboo, so it doesn't stretch out too much and isn't too delicate. We will also need two pairs of needles for the bag. First, smaller needles for the handle. 3.5 millimeter US4, circular needles with 80-100 centimeter cord, 32 to 40 ". The handles will be worked in the round, so this pair of needles has to be circular. We will also need a pair of larger needles, 8 millimeters, so US 11 for the lace section. Lace will be worked flat, in rows, so you can use straight or circular needles, whichever you have. Last, we will need a few notions. Scissors, a stitch marker, and a tapestry needle. Now that you know what kind of tools and supplies we will need, we'll quickly go over the bag construction. 4. Construction and Customization: Even though knitting a lace bag may seem complicated, it's actually quite an easy project. We will start by casting on stitches for one edge of the bag. Then we will work up a rectangle made of elastic lace stitches, and we will finish with the other edge of the bag. Then we will pick up the stitches along the longer side of the lace rectangle, cast on stitches for the first handle, then pick up stitches along the other long side of the rectangle, and cast on stitches for the other handle. With those stitches, we will knit up the edges of the bag and the handles. Thanks to the very elastic lace mesh pattern on the body of the bag, it will naturally shape into a half circle. Unlike many other projects, gauge of knitting is not critical for the bag, so you don't really need to swatch before casting on this project. The lace is very elastic and we will be using a bigger needle size, so the impact of the gauge is really minor. Let's talk about possible customizations. If you would like to change some things up and personalize your bag, here are a few ideas, what you can change. First, you can add some color. You can knit the body of the bag in one color and choose contrast color for the handles or go all out and knit the bag body in stripes. The second way is changing the lace pattern. I will show you how to make the bag with a basic lace stitch. But if you are ready for more practice, you can try to switch up the lace pattern for a different one. Keep in mind to choose simple mesh-like patterns because the bag needs a lot of stretch to shape properly. Intricate lacework patterns that look very floral will not work well with this construction. In the class guidebook, you will find both the lace pattern that I will be using in this class and also a couple of other lace proposals, if you would like some challenge. A third simple way is to change the length of the handles. If you don't want a bag that you can wear on your shoulder, you can make it into a handheld bag by shortening the handles. With casting on less stitches. Now that you know how the bag will be constructed and what kind of customizations you can make, it's time to actually knit the bag! 5. Knitting the Bag Border: It's time to start knitting our bag and we'll be starting with one edge of the bag body. It will be a border, so we'll start working with our smaller needles. I will be using a long tail cast on for this edge, and I think it works pretty well. I will be casting on 24 stitches for the border. Because I'm using a long tail cast on, I need to have the tail measured properly. First, I will make ten loops on my needle. And then hold at the end of the loops to see what length of the yarn I need to cast on ten stitches. I will then measure around three times this length, so I have enough yarn to cast on the stitches and also some tail left to weave in at the end. I'll start with a slipknot, I will cross the yarn, then reaching through the loop, grab the strand that is at the bottom. Pull up and place the slipknot on the needle. Make it tighter. The slipknot will be counting as the first stitch. I have to cast on 23 more stitches. To cast on, if you haven't used a long tail cast on yet, grab yarn with your two fingers and place it into a slingshot. Then to cast the stitch, move the needle under the strand next to your thumb. Then over the strand next to your index finger and through the loop. Release, and you have one stitch. I have all of the 24 stitches cast on, and now I will start knitting the border of the body bag. I will be knitting it in garter stitch. So basically, I will knit all of the stitches in a row and we will do eight rows of the bag edge. So now work eight full rows with the smaller needle, and then we'll move to the next part of the bag. So eight rows of all knit stitches. So I finished my eight rows of garter stitch, so eight rows of knit stitches, and now it's time to move into the lace body bag. First, we will be increasing some stitches because the border is smaller than the bag body itself. From now on, we will be switching to the larger needles. The first row will be the increase row, which we will work just once. And to work it we will knit the first stitch, the edge stitch, and then we will work purl one. Yarn over. Purl one, yarn over. Until we have just one stitch left, we will be working the purl one yarn over. At the end there is one stitch left. It is the edge stitch and I knit the last stitch. We have done increases and now you should have 46 stitches on your needles. Check if you have that amount, if you haven't missed any over because this is the amount of stitches that we will need to work lace pattern. 6. Knitting the Lace: Now we will be working our lace pattern. You can set aside the small needles because you will not be needing them for quite a bit. We'll be working just on the larger needles. For the lace, the pattern that I'm using for the bag here is a 4 row repeat. For the first row, we will work as follows: we'll be knitting all the edge stitches on all of the rows. Knit the first stitch, and then we will work yarn over and knit two together. Insert needle into two of the stitches, the yarn over and stitch and knit them together. Again, yarn over, knit two together. Yarn over, knit two together. Again, don't miss any yarn over so that the stitch count is correct and work the yarn over knit two together until there is one stitch left, so the edge stitch. Yarn over, knit two together, and the last stitch we will knit. So we turn the work. Now we will be working on the wrong side of the bag and work the second row of the lace pattern. We'll start with knit one, and then we will purl all of the stitches until one is left and we will again knit the stitch. It's a pretty straightforward row, knit the first stitch, and then purl all of the stitches. Purling the yarn over will result in this bigger open stitch. This is how the lace will be formed. We are at the last stitch and this is the edge stitch, so we'll knit that stitch. And turn work to the right side. Now we will be working the row three of the lace repeat and to work it, We will start again with knitting the edge stitch, and now we will knit two together, then yarn over. We will start with knitting the two stitches together, making yarn over. Knit two together. Yarn over. It's similar to row one, but in different order, so be sure not to mix it up. Between the rows, our stitch count doesn't change. The knitting two stitches together is balancing out the yarn over. You should always have the 46 stitches on the needles. And the last stitch again, knit. Okay. Turn the work around. Again, we are on the wrong side. You can start to distinguish the right and wrong side because on the wrong side, you will have the purls. They are a bit looser than usually, but the texture of the back is pretty different on the right side and the wrong side. Now we are on row four, the wrong side, and row four is exactly the same as row two. We will knit the edge stitch and purl all of the stitches until one stitch - the edge stitch is left. And the last we knit. So we have worked one repeat of the lace, and you can already see it starts to show. So how the bag will be formed. Now for the lace body of the bag, you have to repeat the four rows until you have worked 24 full repeats of the lace plus three rows. In total, including the first repeat, you should have 24 repeats of the lace, 24 times four rows plus additional three rows. You will end after row three, after working the right side. You can count how many rows you have worked by counting the stitches on the right side. The bigger stitches, one, two, three, four, we have worked four rows. This is one way you can count it if you are not using a row counter or not writing down how many rows you have worked. Or by counting the big eyes of the lace work. One big hole will count for two full rows worked. Here we have two bigger holes, two times two rows worked. These are a couple of ways how you can count the rows. But of course, you can use a row counter or just make marks on a piece of paper after you complete a row or full repeat if that's easier for you. 7. Finishing the Bag Body: I have worked enough rows of the lace. Now it's time to work the part of the edge on the other side of the bag. I will be switching to the smaller needles, and we want the edge to be exactly the same. As you remember, we were increasing the amount of stitches between the edge and the start of the lace. Now it's time to decrease to the original number of stitches. So to do that, working with my smaller needle, I will knit the first stitch, the edge stitch. And now I will be purling two stitches together until the other edge stitch. I will be inserting the needle into two stitches and purling them together. One stitch is left, the edge stitch, so I knit that stitch. You can put aside the larger needles. We will not be using them anymore. Now that we decreased the number of stitches, we have to work the edge in garter stitch. We will work eight rows in garter stitch, which means we will essentially knit eight rows. It's just plain knitting. I have finished the eight rows of garter stitch. If you are not sure if you made enough, you can have a look at the other edge and you can count these bump rows. I have four here and four here, that's even. Now we need to bind off all of those stitches. I will be using a standard bind off. I will start with knitting two stitches and then passing the first stitch over the other. Bind off until end of the row, but do not cut the yarn. Okay. I have one stitch left. I pull up a large loop. And I take my ball of yarn through the loop and pull up. This way we bind off, but we do not cut the yarn. We will be using this yarn from the ball to finish our bag in the next step, and we don't cut it so there are less ends to weave in and so the bag is more stable. Next we'll work the bag handles. 8. Knitting the Handles: Now it's time to create the bag handles. We will be working them with smaller needles in the round. To start the handles, we will need to pick up the stitches. Take your bag, make sure it's on the right side facing us. So that you can see the bumps and rotate your work 90 degrees. First, we'll be picking up the stitches along the side of the bag. We'll be using this yarn from the bind off that is leading to the ball, and we'll start with picking up stitches along the garter edge. We will pick up a stitch from every row of this garter edge. We will be picking up eight stitches. To pick up a stitch insert the needle into the stitch at the edge and pull up a loop. One stitch has been picked up. Then we locate the next row of garter stitch, which is below the bump. Here, and we pull up another loop. Then the next stitch, one below insert needle, pull up a loop. Again, one stitch below the bump over here. And the stitch below the stitch below the bump. Over here, it may take a little bit of practice and time to recognize the edge stitches, but don't worry. It will come. The next one, and here. We have two, four, six, eight stitches from the garter edge. Next, we will pick up one stitch in every lace edge. We will pick up 50 stitches along this lace net part. To do that, we will locate the strand between the bumps. These are the purl bumps. This strand. Then here's one purl bump, here's the other, pick up, one stitch between every pair of pearl bumps. It should be 50. But if you get a different number like you are off by one or a couple of stitches. Don't be frustrated. It's absolutely okay. This is just a market bag. It's not a garment, so you don't have to be detailed with this. But just make sure that you pick up the same number of stitches on every side of the bag, so that it's even. We picked up from one garter edge to the other one. Now we need to pick up again eight stitches along this edge, one in every row. We finished the pick up on the side and now we need to cast on additional stitches for the handle that will be going around our arm when we wear the bag. I will be using a backwards loop cast on to create the handle. It's a super easy cast on that allows also to cast on stitches within project. I will cast on 74 stitches. And the backward loop custom is super simple, so just spread the yarn between your thumb and index finger and insert the needle below the strand and pull up a loop, and that's it. Make it a bit tighter than usual cast on, but not super tight. On one hand, we want the bag handle to be stable to not stretch too much. But on the other hand, we don't want the stitches to be super hard to work into. Take it into account and cast on 74 stitches. I have cast on my 74 stitches and now we will pick up the stitches on the other side of the bag. First off, make sure that the stitches are not twisted. Between this part of the handle or over here when you start picking up the next stitches. Because when we start picking up, we will close them and if they are twisted, there will be no way to untwist them. Make extra sure. For this side, the pick up will be exactly the same. We'll be picking up eight stitches along this garter edge. One stitch in every row, then 50 stitches along the lace edge. Again, eight stitches for the garter edge. Let's pick up. The first stitch, I like to make extra tight, so it's securely joined to the bag. Okay. Now that we have finished picking up the other side, we need to cast on the stitches for the other handle. Again, we will use backwards loop cast and cast on 74 stitches for the handle, exactly the same. I finished casting on stitches for the handle. And now we have picked up the stitches along one side, cast on one handle, pick up the stitches along the other side and cast on for the second handle. It's time to close our work into the round. Once more, make sure that the stitches are not twisted for the handle. And let's place a stitch marker to mark the beginning of the round before we join. Let's start working the first round. The handles will be made in garter stitch as well, so it fits those edges. Working garter stitch in the round is different than working it flat. When working garter stitch flat, we knit all the rows. However, when working in the round, we have to knit one round and then pull one around, and this is what we will be repeating. As we're picking up the stitches, we're knitting them, so the first round will be a purl round. We have to purl all of those stitches that are picked up around the bag and cast on and that's a lot of stitches. So Let's purl all of them. When you reach the marker, it's end of the round. Just slip the marker from left needle to right and you're ready to start working the next round. We purl the first round and now we will knit this round. Simply start with knitting the first stitch and knit all of the stitches until end of the round. That's how we will be working the handle in garter stitch, so purling one round and knitting the next round. We will work seven rounds of a garter stitch in total and we will end after a purl round. After that, we will bind off the stitches and finish the bag. 9. Bind Off and Finishing: Now that all the rounds of the handles and the edges are done, it's time to bind off all of the stitches. I will be using a standard bind off. I will start with knitting two stitches and slipping one over the other. Then knitting one and slip the first stitch over the second and so on. Now I have to bind off all of the stitches around the handles and the edges. Try to do that rather loosely, not very tight, so it doesn't make the bag distorted. Bind off all of the stitches, then quick finishing and the bag will be done. Okay. I finished binding off the stitches and I have just one stitch left. Now I will cut the yarn and pull the stitch up until the yarn is out. Now all that is left to do is to weave in the yarn ends. First, I will join this last stitch, the first stitch that was bound off. Okay. And I will weave in the ends on the wrong side of the bag. I'm on the wrong side and I will weave in the ends into the edge of the bag. I will weave it in as usual with the garter stitch. If you have taken my other courses, then you'll be for sure, be familiar with the method of weaving in. Just follow the stitches to get as close to the natural flow of the stitch as possible and continue weaving the ends for a few centimeters / a couple inches. When you weave in all of the ends, it will be time to block the bag. So what this means is basically wash it for the first time. So I always recommend to hand wash all of your knits and then lay it flat to dry. So now that the bag is finished, it's time for the wrap up of the class. 10. Wrap Up: Thank you so much for taking this class. I hope you enjoyed watching it and making your market bag. In this class, you learned how to knit simple lace, the construction of a classic market bag, how to cast on stitches in extension of your knitting, and how to customize your projects. After the class, you can knit more customized bags adapting the stitch pattern following the tips in the class book, or start new projects with more complex lace stitches using the skills you learned so far. Remember to post your project in the gallery and leave a review for the class. I'd love to hear your feedback. If you'd like to stay in the loop about new classes and patterns, sign up to my newsletter. Happy knitting!