Machine Knitting: A Bag for Bricks

There are so many techniques to learn (and practice!) when learning to machine knit. I thought it would be fun to solicit some smaller projects, so I “opened” “commissions” by asking some friends if they had any small project ideas after showing them a successful hat.

By buddy Chris took me up on it! He has a large power brick that he found was getting scratched up in his luggage and asked if I could make a cover for it.

This sounded like a totally doable project, so I decided to take it extremely seriously.

I asked Chris to send me some measurements and a reference photo.

Close up photo of a gray plastic battery brick with USB ports and buttons visible resting on a wooden table.
Now that's a reference photo!

I used the measurements and photos to 3D print a test-dummy brick.

Time-lapse video of a Bambu Labs printer making a purple plastic brick.

I offered up some terrible photos of my yarn stash to pick colors, and some patterning options to cover the bag.

A too-dark photo of yarn cones on a shelf. Blue and pink are visible in front, with purple, black, and gray harder to discern in the back. A tiling pattern of cubes in yellow and blue stitches numbered '31'.

I used these selections to make a gauge swatch at a few different yarn tensions.

Knit swatch with three patterned sections in gray and black yarn. Each section uses the tiling cube pattern and is separated by gray areas with lace holes that indicate the tension used to knit that section.
Always make a guage swatch!

With the gauge chosen, I measured out the number of stitches and rows per inch. Then it was time to write up a pattern.

Sticky note with penciled diagram, measurements, and instructions. See below for transcription.
"Good enuff?" We'll see!

This bag is knit as a rectangle from the top down.

  1. Start by casting on enough stitches to go around the two short sides (actually, a little less, since we want it to be snug).
  2. A half-inch hem is made by starting with an inch of knitting, then folding it over and re-hanging the initial stitches to form a tube. A cord will go through this hem to let us pull the bag closed.
  3. The main body of the bag is then knitted in two colors using Fair Isle pattern number 031 from Brother’s Stitch World. It’s as long as the long side of the brick, plus a little extra for the bottom, which will be stitched shut.

The bag is formed by sewing up the rectangle on two sides. I found this a little tricky on the bottom, as I had the pattern go all the way to the edge, so it’s a little lumpy!

The cord for the bag is knit on the machine by casting on 3 stitches, setting the carriage to tuck in one direction, then knitting a bunch of rows until it seemed long enough.

I added a 3D printed lace lock to hold the cord in place when the bag is pulled tight.

Empty bag laid flat on a countertop. At the top the gray hem and white 3D printed lace lock are visible, then the cube-patterned body in gray and black, ending in at the bottom with slightly rounded edges. Bag with test-brick inside posted on a black desk top. The black ccord and lace lock cinch the top closed.
Click through to see the full-sized photos.
Video demonstration of sliding the test brick into the bag and cinching it up.

I did a bit of a knit-finishing crime, here. Specifically, I had washed my guage swatches before measuring them, but I did not wash the finished bag. By the time I had sewn it up and added the cord I was ready to be done with the project. So, the final bag is slightly larger than intended, unless and until it gets washed or steamed to let the fibers relax and shrink up.

But, whatever, it’s a finished object! I sent it to Chris, who sent back this photo!

Cinched bag with brick inside resting on a patterned surface.
This photo was sent to me with the caption "Great success!"

It was super fun to go over the top on this project. While it might feel like a “simple” one, it gave me good practice thinking about each step and not cutting corners. Well, not cutting corners until I decided not to wash and block the finished bag!

Many thanks to Chris for humoring me on this project, sending encouragement as I overshared process photos and video, and giving me permission to share this project on my site!

My knitting commissions are closed at the moment, as I have a good number of things I want to work on. Stay tuned in case they open up again, though. 😉

#machine-knitting #commission #bag
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