Beautiful Day

On my quest for a perfect beach tote/farmer’s market bag, I tried several patterns. I was having trouble finding one that was as large as I wanted while still using a reasonable amount of yarn and not taking too long to knit. As always, in my times of need I turned to my trusty stitch dictionaries and this bag was born. This bag is large enough to hold all the beach essentials including a towel, sun block, and a good book, but it takes under 250 yards of yarn to knit and works up super quickly. I hope you like making these bags as much as I do and that they bring you many beachy days.

Pattern Notes
• While this pattern was designed to use almost exactly one skein of Cascade Sunseeker (I usually have a wee ball left over), you can use any yarn in any weight. I have never used any lighter weight yarn (and in order to make the bag as sturdy as possible I probably wouldn’t use anything lighter than a dk weight) but I have used a bulky-weight yarn to great effect. The bag was a little larger overall and took about 280 yards, so just be careful that you have enough on hand if you are going up a weight or three.
• It’s also worth noting that I did NOT use different-sized needles when switching to the bulky-weight yarn.
• You are free to use any size needles you like for the base, brim, & handles, just make sure your stitches won’t be too large so the base does still hold stuff. I also wouldn’t try going much smaller for the body. Changing the size of the needles from what’s written may also change the yardage required, so make sure you have a backup skein in case you need it.
• While you can theoretically work the entire thing on dpns if you want to, I strongly suggest having the circulars. It can be quite cumbersome otherwise.

UPDATE AS OF OCTOBER 2015
It’s finally here! The pattern has now been updated to include instructions for an optional inside pocket! I hope to update this again with better pictures, but I believe all you need to add it to your bag should be there. If there is any confusion, please feel free to PM or email me and I will clarify both you and the pattern.