Wow your friends and family with this really easy, quick and enjoyable craft project.

This Tutorial will show you how to knit, felt and decorate a bucket style bag. The felting part is incredibly easy, all you do is put it in the washing machine and the heat shrinks the wool and felts the fibres together for you, with impressive results!  The felt decoration is easy to apply,  and an opportunity to indulge your creative flair!

Materials
10 x 50g balls of felting wool
Knitting Needles size 9mm
Wool embroidery needle
felting fleece
Felting punch
Felting sponge

To Knit the Base
First cast on 40 stitches. Knit up a rectangle of regular knit and pearl rows. Keep going until you have come to the end of one ball of wool and cast off.

To Knit the Sides
There will be two sides. To make side one, cast on 80 stitches and knit up a rectangle using up three balls of wool. Continue with a fourth ball of wool and after 30 stitches cast off 20 stitches for the handle hole, then continue to knit the rest of this row, another 30 stitches. Next row knit 30 stitches and cast on 20 stitches then knit the remainder 30 stitches. Continue with this last ball of wool until you only have enough wool to cast off the last row.

Repeat for side two.

To Make Mobile Phone Pocket
Cast on 14 stitches. Knit up a generous amount of rows depending on how big your phone is. Cast off.

To Makeup
Using a big wool embroidery needle, sew big running stitches along the bottom of the sides and draw in to gather to fit the bottom panel. Sew sides to base and sides to sides. Remove wool used for gathering. Sew in the mobile phone pocket just under the handle opening on the inside.

To Wash
Wash on a boil wash with a little wool detergent to shrink. Repeat if necessary.

To Decorate
Put your felting sponge underneath the front and decorate with wool fleece and punch into the side using a felting punch, being careful not to get your fingers in the way. I use a thimble!