How to Make a Drawstring Knitting Bag: A Complete DIY Project Bag Tutorial

If you’ve spent any time knitting or crocheting, you already know the struggle. Yarn escapes from your tote, needles poke through the lining of your everyday bag, and half-finished projects end up tangled with your keys and receipts. A dedicated project bag solves all of this, and the best part? Making one yourself takes only a couple of hours, costs very little, and gives you something beautiful and completely customized to your style.

This tutorial will walk you through everything you need to know to sew a drawstring knitting bag from scratch — no advanced sewing skills required. Whether you’re a complete beginner with a sewing machine or someone who’s made a few simple projects before, you’ll be able to follow along and end up with a proper, sturdy, lined project bag with a drawstring closure that actually works.

Why Every Knitter Needs a Dedicated Project Bag

Before we dive into the how-to, let’s talk about why a purpose-built project bag is worth making in the first place.

A good knitting project bag does several things that a regular tote or zip pouch can’t quite manage. It keeps your active project separate from everything else in your life. It lets yarn feed through the top smoothly when you’re working, so you don’t have to constantly root around inside the bag. It protects your work-in-progress from dust, pet hair, and the general chaos of everyday life. And if you’re the kind of knitter who rotates between multiple projects — and most of us are — having a bag for each one means you can grab exactly what you need without hunting.

There’s also something deeply satisfying about using a handmade bag to carry a handmade project. It’s craft all the way down.

The design we’re making today is a simple drawstring bag with a flat base, made from two layers of fabric for structure and durability. It’s big enough to hold a full sweater-in-progress but not so enormous that it becomes unwieldy. The drawstring feeds through a casing at the top, and the bag can stand up on its own when open, which makes it easy to drop in your project mid-row without losing your place.

What You’ll Need

Fabric

For a lined bag, you’ll need two fabrics: one for the outer shell and one for the lining.

For the outer fabric, choose something with a bit of body — a canvas, a medium-weight cotton print, a linen blend, or a home décor cotton. Avoid anything too flimsy or stretchy. You want the bag to hold its shape.

For the lining, a quilting cotton works beautifully. It’s smooth on the inside, which means yarn and needles won’t snag, and it comes in a staggering variety of prints and solids. You could also use a ripstop nylon lining if you want something that’s particularly easy to wipe clean.

For a bag roughly 14 inches wide by 16 inches tall (a generous project bag size), you’ll need about half a yard of each fabric. If you want to make a smaller bag — say, for a single sock project or a small colorwork piece — a fat quarter of each will do nicely.

Other Supplies

You’ll also need about 2 yards of cord or ribbon for the drawstring. Waxed cotton cord, nylon paracord, satin ribbon, or braided cotton rope all work well. Choose something that feels smooth in your hand and slides easily. The diameter should be no more than about half an inch so it moves cleanly through the casing.

Beyond that, gather the following: a sewing machine (or a needle and thread if you prefer hand sewing, though this will take considerably longer), coordinating thread, an iron and ironing board, fabric scissors or a rotary cutter with a self-healing mat, pins or sewing clips, a fabric marker or chalk, a ruler or quilting ruler, and a safety pin or bodkin for threading the drawstring through the casing.

Cutting Your Fabric

Start by washing and pressing both of your fabrics. Pre-washing prevents shrinkage later, and pressing makes your cuts more accurate.

From both the outer fabric and the lining, cut the following pieces:

One main body panel measuring 15 inches wide by 34 inches tall. This single long piece will fold in half to form the front and back of the bag. Cutting it as one piece rather than two separate panels means one fewer seam at the bottom, which makes the bag sturdier.

One base circle or rectangle. For a flat base, cut a rectangle measuring 15 inches wide by 6 inches tall from both fabrics. When sewn in, this creates the boxy, structured bottom that lets the bag stand open.

If you prefer not to have a structured base and want a simpler silhouette, you can skip the base panel and simply sew across the bottom of the tube. The bag will still work perfectly well — it just won’t stand up on its own.

Sewing the Outer Bag

Step One: Sew the Side Seams

Fold your outer fabric main panel in half so the short edges meet, right sides together. You should now have a rectangle roughly 15 inches wide by 17 inches tall. Pin or clip down both long sides.

Before you sew, you need to leave a gap for the drawstring casing. Measure down 2.5 inches from the top folded opening on each side seam and place a pin. Sew from the bottom of the bag up to that pin, backstitch to secure, then skip the next inch (this is the opening where the drawstring cord will emerge), and sew the remaining 1.5 inches up to the top fold. Repeat on the other side seam.

Use a half-inch seam allowance throughout. Press the seams open with your iron.

Step Two: Attach the Base

With the bag tube still inside out, center your outer base rectangle along the bottom raw edge of the tube, right sides together. The base is the same width as the bag, so the short ends will align. Sew around the bottom edge with a half-inch seam allowance, pivoting at the corners. Trim the corners diagonally to reduce bulk, then press the seam toward the base.

Step Three: Create the Drawstring Casing

Turn down the top raw edge of the outer bag by half an inch and press. Then fold it down another inch and press again. This creates a casing. Sew close to the lower folded edge of the casing, making sure the small side-seam openings you left earlier are now sitting within the casing channel. This is the tunnel the drawstring will travel through.

Set the outer bag aside for now, still inside out.

Sewing the Lining

Sew the lining exactly as you sewed the outer bag, with two important differences.

First, do not leave gaps in the side seams of the lining. Sew straight down from top to bottom on both sides.

Second, leave a gap of about four inches along the bottom seam of the lining. This opening will be used later to turn the whole bag right side out. Don’t skip this step — it’s easy to forget, but without it you’ll have no way to invert the bag.

Sew the lining base in the same way as the outer base, then press the seams.

Putting It All Together

This is the step where the two parts of the bag become one, and it always feels a little like magic.

Keep the lining inside out. Turn the outer bag right side out. Slip the outer bag inside the lining so that the right sides are facing each other — the pretty sides of both fabrics should be touching in the middle, with the wrong sides facing outward. Line up the top raw edges and match the side seams.

Pin or clip all the way around the top edge. Sew around the entire circumference of the top with a half-inch seam allowance.

Now reach through the gap you left in the lining bottom, grab the outer bag fabric, and pull everything through. It will feel like wrestling a sock inside out for a moment, but it comes through cleanly. Keep pulling and coaxing until the whole bag is right side out, with the lining sitting inside the outer bag.

Push the lining down into the bag, then press the top edge so the seam sits right at the fold. Close the gap in the lining bottom by folding the raw edges in and either hand-stitching or machine-sewing close to the edge.

Finishing the Drawstring Casing

From the outside of the bag, you should be able to see the small openings at the side seams where the drawstring will exit. Press the bag well around the casing area.

Topstitch around the top edge of the bag about an eighth of an inch from the fold to anchor the lining in place and give the bag a clean, finished look. Then sew a second line of stitching about an inch below the first. These two lines of stitching define the drawstring channel and keep the lining from shifting around.

Threading the Drawstring

Cut your cord into two equal lengths of about one yard each.

Attach a safety pin or bodkin to one end of the first cord. Insert it into the opening on the left side seam and thread it all the way around the casing channel, coming back out the same opening it went in. Pull both ends out evenly and tie them together in a knot, or thread them through a cord stop toggle.

Repeat with the second cord, but start at the right side seam opening this time. Thread it all the way around and out the same opening on the right side.

When you’re done, each side seam will have two cord ends emerging from it. Pull both cords simultaneously from opposite sides to close the bag. This two-cord drawstring method closes much more securely and evenly than a single-cord drawstring, which has a tendency to bunch.

Customizing Your Knitting Project Bag

One of the real pleasures of making your own project bag is that you can customize it endlessly. Here are a few ideas to consider.

Add a pocket. Before you assemble the bag, sew a flat patch pocket onto the lining panel. This is perfect for stitch markers, a small pair of scissors, a tapestry needle, or a row counter. A pocket about 6 inches wide by 5 inches tall, sewn along the bottom and sides only, works well.

Add a wrist strap or handle. Cut a strip of outer fabric about 3 inches wide by 14 inches long, fold it in thirds lengthwise, and topstitch down both long edges. Loop this over one side seam before you sew it into the bag and you’ll have a handy wrist loop that makes the bag easy to carry or hang.

Use iron-on interfacing. If your outer fabric feels a little floppy, fuse a light- to medium-weight woven interfacing to the wrong side before cutting your pieces. This gives the bag significantly more structure without adding much weight.

Try a different base shape. Some sewists prefer an oval base rather than a rectangular one, which gives the finished bag a rounded, almost basket-like silhouette. Trace an oval about 14 inches long by 5 inches wide, use that as your base pattern, and ease the main body tube around the curve when sewing.

Label it. If you’re making multiple project bags (a very reasonable approach to managing multiple active projects), you can use a fabric pen to write the project name on a small piece of cotton twill tape and stitch it inside each bag. No more guessing which bag has the cardigan and which has the shawl.

Tips for Choosing Fabric Combinations

The fabric pairing you choose makes a big difference in how the finished bag looks and feels. Here are a few combinations that work particularly well.

A classic choice is a large-scale botanical or geometric print on the outside paired with a simple contrasting solid lining — a deep teal exterior with a warm mustard lining, for instance, or a cream floral with a dusty rose inside.

For a more understated look, a textured linen or linen-cotton blend on the outside with a white or natural lining feels very clean and modern. This combination also tends to complement the natural tones of undyed or lightly dyed yarns beautifully.

If you’re sewing this as a gift for a knitter friend, think about what colors they tend to wear or use in their work, and choose accordingly. A project bag is a very personal object, and one that’s clearly chosen or made with someone in mind will mean a lot.

Caring for Your Project Bag

Because the bag is fully lined with machine-sewn seams, it’s quite durable. For most everyday dirt and fuzz, a quick shake and a pass with a lint roller keeps it looking tidy. For a deeper clean, machine-wash on a gentle cycle in cold water and reshape while damp. If you used canvas or a thicker outer fabric, line drying is preferable to the dryer to prevent the seams from distorting.

If you used waxed cord for the drawstring, remove it before washing, as the wax can transfer to fabric when wet.

Making More Than One

Once you’ve made this bag once, you’ll find that subsequent versions go much faster. Many knitters find it useful to keep three or four of these bags on hand — one per active project, plus a spare. Because the materials cost is low (often under ten dollars per bag if you shop sales or use stash fabric), making a small collection of them is very practical.

Consider varying the sizes slightly between bags. The dimensions given here produce a generous bag ideal for sweater yokes and larger shawls. Reduce the main body height to 26 inches (which folds to 13 inches) and the base to 12 inches wide for a medium bag suited to hat or mitten projects. For a tiny notions pouch, reduce everything by half and skip the structured base entirely.

Final Thoughts

There’s a particular pleasure in making your own tools and accessories for a craft you love. A handmade drawstring project bag is exactly that kind of object — unpretentious, genuinely useful, made to your own specifications, and carrying the same kind of quiet handmade quality as the knitting it holds.

This is also a project that works beautifully with scraps and remnants. If you’ve been knitting or sewing for any length of time, you likely have fabric in your stash that would be perfect for this, sitting there waiting for the right small project. This is that project.

Once you’ve made one, you’ll wonder how you managed without it.