I got into a funny conversation the other day with some friends, talking about how deceptive the Fringe Field Bag is. It doesn’t look like a very big bag, but then it holds so much more than you think it will. I’m constantly amazed at the things I see people pull out of them in real life, and am always ogling everyone’s on the #fringefieldbag feed, of course. But these replies from my friends cracked me up:
“I actually have a Field Bag in my car with a fully knit Arranmore sleeve, full skein of Arranmore, 6 feet of tinsel garland, full size fabric scissors and a banana in it.”
“I have an entire boxy sweater in mine right now. That sweater circumference is 60″!!”
“Mine has a sleeve, 3 skeins of yarn, magazine clippings, old sock yarn, half a hat plus the yarn for said hat, a highlighter, a bunch of pouches and my hat I was wearing before I got hot.”
An update out of the blue a few days later:
“9 [knitted] Christmas ornaments, 8 partial skeins of Canopy Fingering, 1 banana, 1 clementine, 1 size US1 DPN.”
I don’t like a really stuffed bag (of any kind), so I tend to keep less in mine than most people, I think — but I have for sure had a banana in my Field Bag at one point or another. Right now I have two hat WIPs and their yarn in one, and a cowl WIP plus two wound DK skeins in another. So that’s my slightly self-serving (market research!) but hopefully entertaining Q for You this week: What’s in your Field Bag? (With apologies to those who don’t have one. Yet!)
SHOP NEWS: Speaking of the Field Bag, we have all five colors back in stock this morning, Porter Bins for everyone, and the Bento Bags have been restocked as well (or will be any minute). The leather wrist ruler is back! We’ve got the Double Basketweave Cowl kit in indigo again (as well as undyed) and the Wabi Mitts kit in all eight colors at the same time! If you’ve been on the (now closed) wait list for the Lykke needles and didn’t hear from me yesterday, you’ll be hearing from me today. For everyone not on the list: if there are any left once the wait listers have their shot at them, I will announce it on Instagram @fringesupplyco tomorrow morning. But we’ve also got more coming next week, and will continue to carry them!
I hope you’ve all had a very merry week, and have an ever merrier weekend—
.
PREVIOUSLY in Q for You: Are you a wardrobe planner?
Photos from the #fringefieldbag feed, clockwise from top left: @caitstop, @naturally_nora_crochet, @andrearknits, @bohochicfiberco (the November prize winner), @soveryshannon, @xtinawithwolves
omg you’ll like this (probably?) I was struggling with a tubular cast on for three days, ready to quit knitting and take up something peaceful like meditating but I looked at the time and saw that if I left RIGHT NOW I could make it to knit night and get some answers. I didn’t want to bring my big bag (it’s cold and I would be bundled up and I had to go RIGHT NOW) so I threw the following into my field bag:
2 skeins of working yarn, 1/3 skein waste yarn, 3 pairs of circs, pattern, cable needle, tape measure, pen, wallet, bus pass
I get there and they showed me how to do the tube! I also purchased another pair of circs (why does this hat pattern require 5 needle sizes?)
then I had to go to the grocery store for a (quart of) milk, snapple and chapstick which all went into the FB. I still had enough leverage to cast on while riding the bus home :)
I also keep a map of the nashville bus system bc I took the bus to haus of yarn to purchase my field bag :)
One of my projects was a 3metre long scarf the used to make me feel like Mary poppins getting it out of my field bag. The looks on the commuter train were classic!
A finished sock, a nearly finished sock on 1.5 circulars, said socks’ yarn, scissors, stitch counters, a knitted hat I was showing to my knitting club students, a multi-page pattern, 2 32″ cables, a granola bar, a tube of chapstick.
Such a funny question. I’ve had to clean mine a couple of times now because sometimes I don’t know anymore what I have in there. So this is what I have in my field bag:
-Basics that never leave the bag: waste yarn with a tapestry needle, a nailfile, stitch markers (although I always end up using pieces of yarn), a lot of random pieces of yarn, a small ruler/needle gauge, a tape measure that ocassionally runs away, tissues for my runny nose, chapstick and sometimes hand cream, pencil and paper, needle cables and their keys for my interchangeables and all my cable needles.
-In rotation depending on the project and occasion: I usually have more than one project in there in case I get bored of one so I have more than 1 cake of yarn, the necessary needles and some extras, notebook and or pattern copy or magazine
-Things that are there but shouldn’t: external hard drive, a Lamy fountain pen, power bank and cable for my phone, a credit card and some cash, my iPad, one of those compressible tote bags (for impromptu groceries shopping), and sometimes an umbrella.
It really is an amazing bag, sometimes I leave the house with just this bag, I love it :)
omggggg a fountain pen?! I would be afraid of spilling ink all over everything!
Right now mine has about 6 half skeins of yarn from various projects. I was trying to clean up my living room and put all my knitting stuff back in my little workshop and instead I stuffed the yarn and a billion double points in my field back and kept moving.
I am a non-stuffer as well, always trying to carry as little as possible. Rosebud Salve Lip Balm, stitch markers, a pencil, mini scissors, a tape measure and a bone repair hook (from Fringe :) ) all live permanently in my Field bag. There is ALWAYS a WIP in there and right now it is a hat for my husband being knit with black MYak.
Well, since my mother STOLE mine, I’ll tell you what she keeps in it: wallet, keys, cell, charger, coupon thingy, makeup bag, powdered coffee creamer, mints, cough drops, several combs, scissors, Scotch tape, band-aids, loose change, dog treats, spare dog leash, mini flashlight, something I cannot identify–it’s the consistency of styrofoam but might have once been pumpkin bread from Starbucks, gloves, the hat I knit for her last year, and a tawdry paperback.
:D
😂😂😂
lol amazing!
I neeeeed one!
When I’m at my shop I have to be doing something and just one project is not an option. So my field bag is stuffed with balls of yarn – at least a couple connected to WIP hats, maybe a pair of socks and the circulars to go with them. Many small balls of handspun to make small crocheted bowls and the crochet hooks for them. Oh! A small bag of buttons for my bowls. Whatever book I’m reading. Notes to myself. And of course its constantly changing!
3/4 of a sweater and all the notions…I must say, I’m adamantly anti-food in my Field Bag, if only because I walk away from knitting at months at a time and am not so organized as to check for food tucked away in my bags before I walk away from them!
I don’t have one as of yet, but I know I would only have the minimum I need to complete my current WIP. My current bag only has a hat and matching cowl both are almost completed, scissors, and yarn needle. It’s a big bag, so it is mostly empty.
Ummm…. so I actually end up mostly using mine in place of a purse on the weekends. So it has whatever project (currently two skeins of sock yarn being turned into a shawl), plus keys, cellphone, wallet; plus assorted notions (tape measure, spare interchangeable needles, whatever).
In my main bag (I have 4 😬) I have a mint tin from the trip to hawaii where my husband proposed where I keep my stitch markers, a little tube with darning needles and a repair hook, a crumpled pattern, a tape measure that stopped retracting so is now tangled in a ball, a small wooden gauge ruler, tiny scissors or nail clippers, my phone, sometimes a wallet….oh yeah and currently 2 skeins of purl soho’s merino twist and an almost done skirt that is just a slightly tweaked version of BT’s furrow cowl.
Does anyone know the name of the pattern 2nd one on the left-beige shawl collar top down?
I don’t have a Field Bag (yet!) but I use a small green canvas army backpack in its place. It has a little side pocket flap perfect for my pencil/DPNs and a back inset pocket that’s big enough for my folded pattern and my extra circs. I tuck a Fringe Supply Co muslin bag inside with my small tools – stitch markers, tape measure, tapestry needle vial, etc.
Currently I have most of the finished pieces + one last WIP piece for my long-awaited Exeter cardigan in there, plus a small drawstring muslin bag (from a pair of shoes) with a ball of sock yarn in case the urge strikes. (That bag sometimes comes along outside the bigger backpack, for car trips, etc.) But I carry it around on my back with me, feeling borderline hip, and no one knows it’s my knitting bag.
The best thing about using this bag is that whenever I watch WWII movies I like to imagine the US Army soldiers are running into battle with their knitting on their back.
excruciatingly boring here: just safety scissors, the mini altoids tin I put stitch markers and safety pins in, a little double-ended crochet hook keychain, notebook, pen, t-pins from when I crammed them in there while packing, tape measure (I used to carry my grandmother’s with me, but it started falling apart a little and so now I just have a cheap one), and two and a half feet of harry potter scarf as a christmas present for my little sister. I did once fit all the yarn for a hue shift afghan in there, plus two squares of the current quadrant.
I currently have two sweater sleeves and their yarn, a hat and it’s yarn, and PurlBKnit’s hoodie and it’s yarn, (all of that in progress); a pouch with measuring tape, skin balm, repair hooks and cable needles; scissors, tapestry needles, the next dpn’s for the hat, a counter, a pencil & knitters graph journal, and my leather stitch marker pouch in mine. And I just pulled an apple out of it.
Funny story, my legs are up in the top right photo next to my bag, and I actually have the second of the very same shawl as in the photo in there now! Plus, you know, my kids applesauce pouch, my entire hook role, my thread snips, and about fifteen stitch markers wandering, but not lost.
My Sibella pullover that I haven’t touched in 2 weeks.
Eeek.
Hahaha, this really made me chuckle! Who’d have though they’d be so useful for transporting fruit?
I don’t yet have a field bag, but I think if you ask me the same thing this time next year, I’ll be able to give you an answer.
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