Linen bags are great for carrying bottles & heavy items back from the supermarket but, if you’re anything like me, you never seem to have enough of them when you arrive at the check-out. Despite your best intentions to be more environmentally conscious, you still end up coming home with countless numbers of plastic bags.

Well, now you can be seriously green and look cool at the same time. Carry one or more of these bags when you head to the shops and feel the pleasure of using your very own bags instead of yet more plastic ones. Keep of set of bags ready in your car and another set by the back door ready to grab on your way out and you will always have them ready to use.

I usually carry sets of 5 bags:

• an outer BYOB and then inside:
• a linen bag for all the heavy items,
• a canvas bottle bag for jars, bottles & cans,
• a solid-sided BYOB variation for all the little bits-&-pieces
• & another BYOB mesh-sided bag for all the bulky items.

Enjoy making these colorful bags & doing your bit for the environment at the same time.

BTW, the original Knitty pattern had a slight error which crept in. This has now been corrected in both the Knitty pattern and the pdf included in the Ravelry library here. If you are still working off the original pattern the correct instructions should read:

“Using smaller sized circular needles in 24”/60cm length & starting from the mid-way point of one of the short sides on the base, pick-up and k165 sts in main color, then place marker to denote end of round. ”

See here for some Q&A on these bags, and here for ideas for other colorways.