The studio
A room above a
machine shop
Kelham Island, Sheffield. One chair, one blocking board, a swift and ball winder that came out of a closing wool shop in 2015, and eleven years of yarn ends in the floorboards.
How it started
Two years of repairs
taught the design.
I knitted garments for ten years, then took in repairs on other people's knitted bags. Straps stretched to the knee, bases gone through, linings torn away from a seam, colourwork puckered because the floats were pulled tight. Two years of that shows you where patterns cut corners, and it decides how you write your own.
So the straps here are doubled i-cord rather than single. Bases are worked twice over. Linings are cut to the blocked panel and stitched down all the way round instead of tacked at the corners. Floats are caught every fifth stitch. None of it shows in a photograph, and all of it is why a bag still carries a full shop in ten years.
The colourwork came later. A commission in 2019 asked for a fox mask knitted into a purse front, and there has been a chart on the table most weeks since.
By the numbers
Eleven years at the chair
Process
What happens after you order
A knitted-to-order bag goes through five stages. Here is the whole route.
Day one, the swatch and the wind
Your order prints out with the colourway and the strap drop on it. I knit a 15 cm swatch in that yarn, wash it, dry it, and measure it, because gauge off the needles is never gauge after a wash and a bag knitted to the wrong gauge is the wrong size. Then the skein goes on the swift and gets wound into cakes by hand.
Day two to six, the knitting
Panels are worked one at a time, each in a single sitting where the length allows, because tension drifts if you put a panel down for two days and come back to it. Cables are crossed every fourth round on a short cable needle. Colourwork runs two colours per round and no more, with the floats caught every fifth stitch so nothing snags a finger inside the bag.
Day seven, seaming
Panels are joined with mattress stitch worked one full stitch in from the edge, which buries the seam inside the fabric instead of leaving a ridge. Where a bag will take load, the next panel is picked up live from the edge of the last one, so there is no sewn seam under the weight at all.
Day eight, wet blocking
The bag goes into cool water with wool soap for twenty minutes, gets pressed out in a towel, then pinned flat to the exact measurement on the listing and left to dry for a day. This is the step that turns a floppy piece of knitting into a shape, and it is why every measurement on this site is a blocked measurement.
Day nine, lining and hardware
Lining fabric is cut to the blocked panel, not to the pattern, since knitting never comes off the needles exactly as charted. On the smaller bags it is stitched in by hand. Then handles, zips, clasps, or webbing go on, the bag gets photographed on the chair, the photo goes to you, and it goes into a cotton bag and a card box.
Standing rules
How the studio operates
Care guide
Washing and blocking
Hand-knitted fabric wants cool water, wool soap, and a flat surface. Nothing else.
Wool and merino
Cool water, wool soap, twenty minutes, no agitation. Press the water out in a towel and never wring, since wringing felts the fibres against each other. Dry flat and away from a radiator. Wool only needs washing two or three times a year, and airing it does most of the work in between.
Cotton and linen
Both take a cool machine wash on their own. Pull the bag back to shape when it is damp, since cotton dries in whatever shape you leave it. Linen will crease and that is the fibre behaving normally rather than a fault.
Alpaca
Wash it less than you think. Alpaca has no scales, so it does not felt easily, and it also has no bounce, which means heat and weight will stretch it. Cool water, flat drying, and never on a hanger.
Pilling and blocking again
Merino pills at friction points on anything. A sweater comb takes the pills off in a minute without damaging the fabric. If a bag loses its shape after a year, wash it and block it again to the measurement on its listing, and it will come back.
Sizing
Sizing and straps
Every number on a listing is a blocked measurement, taken after washing.
Blocked measurements
Every dimension on a listing is measured after the bag has been washed and blocked, which is the size it actually is in your hand. Knitted fabric gives under load, so a bag carries more than its stated dimensions and settles a centimetre or two wider over the first month of use. That settling is normal and it stops.
Strap length
Strap drop is the distance from the top of your shoulder to the top of the bag. Measure with a tape wearing the coat you will carry it in. A 24 cm drop puts the bag under the arm, 30 cm puts it at the hip, and 52 cm is a cross-body length on most adults. Any strap can be knitted to a different drop at no extra cost if you ask ahead of the cast-on.
Choosing a size
The market tote comes in two sizes and everything else is one size, since a lined bag has a fixed lining and cannot be graded up on request. If you need a listed bag at a different size, that is a commission rather than a size option, and it starts from a swatch.
Questions
Asked often
Sample site. Lynn's Knits is an invented brand built as a design demonstration. The studio, the maker, the numbers, and the bags on this page are fictional.
Studio list
One email when a one-of-one goes up
A photo of the skein and a price a day early, and nothing else.
Sample form. Nothing is sent or stored.