My Minimalist Knitting Bag

I've been spending the past few months really looking at what I knit, what I knit with, and what I have far too much of. The truth of it is I have far too much of almost everything, and while I occasionally attempt a scarf or pair of mittens or even a sweater, the bulk of what I make is hats.

So why I had needles of all sizes and types spread all over the house was a mystery.

I decided to not just take a good hard look at what I have, but also really pare back to just what I actually use. So over the last few weeks I've been getting organized. I've been pulling together the things I actually use, and either donating or giving to others the stuff I know I won't actually use.

This, then, is the final pile. What I actually use, keep in my knitting bag, and know will see lots of knitting time and love.

The main bag is from Thirty One (this style is now discontinued), which is one of the more fun organizational companies I've come across in a long time. A good friend sells the bags, and we've got quite a number of them around the house.

Above you can see into the bag, with a view of everything I keep inside. The flowery project bag is from Six Munchkin Stitching, and I won it in a giveaway on Raverly. That said, I'm in heaven over the quality and size, and would definitely recommend it to knitters looking for a new project bag!

Once I take everything out of the bag, you can really see what all I'm packing. The black skein on the left is going to be turned into two hats for a fun partnership I'll be sharing in a few weeks, and the two skeins of red yarn are Modern Baby, waiting to be turned into hats for the Little Hats, Big Hearts campaign.

The pile in the center is my circular/dpns case (flowered, more photos in a second), my interchangeable needle set my mama got me for my birthday, and a pencil case holding all my crochet hooks.

To the right of that pile, at top is a kitchen food scale I use to weigh finished projects (to calculate yardage) and the flower pouch from Six Munchkin Stitching.

All of this fits into my bag with plenty of room for at least two more yarn skeins.

Above you can see inside my project pouch. Right now I'm using it to hold remnant balls of yarn waiting to become Golden Pear hats, although it's also the perfect size to hold a skein of yarn that's being knitted into a hat! I'm loving it as a way to keep my Golden Pear hats in progress out of the rest of my knitting bag, though. I don't have to worry about the small balls of yarn getting wrapped up around anything else this way!

Finally, this is an inside shot of my circular and dpns case. It's the Combo Needle Case from Chic-a, and I've been coveting it since I saw Heather share hers on the Ewe Ewe blog a few months ago.

None of their patterns really "spoke to me" so I decided to go for the most ridiculously gaudy one they had, and I couldn't be happier with it! It's got these ridiculously large Hawaiian flowers all over it, which I love love love!

I'm using it for all my 16" circular needles, plus all of my DPNs and all of the notions I use for just about everything I knit (darning needle, tape measure, stitch markers, scissors, cable needle). I don't have all the circular needle spots filled up, but these are all the ones I've got, so I'm thinking of separating out the FOUR SETS OF SIZE NINES I have (I don't want to talk about it) so they each have their own spot, and seeing how I like that.

Some of you may be thinking to yourselves "that's not very minimalist!" while others are probably saying "how does she get away with having so little!" and I totally see both sides of that. I'm sure I could knit with less, but what I have here is what I use every single day. And while some knitters may need more for their daily knitting habit, for me and my hat knitting, this is exactly the right amount.

My yarn lives separately, and I don't want to talk about that right now - not how much I have, or how it's (not) stored. I still need to come to peace with what I've got or keep paring down, and I definitely need to find some better ways to keep track of what I've got, yarn-wise.

But that's it, quite literally. I've had much more than this before, and always struggled to find what I needed. I've tried to function with less, and always felt like something was missing. Working with this system for a few weeks now, I'm in heaven and feel like I've found a system I can work with, and just the right amount of supplies for me!