For about thirty years my crochet lived in a canvas library tote, and for about thirty years I spent the first ten minutes of every session digging. Hooks went to the bottom. A pattern folded in thirds went to the bottom. Whatever I was working on went to the bottom too, trailing a strand of yarn behind it like a bad decision I kept repeating. I bought the CRAFTISS project bag in May. It is the first thing I have owned that treats a work in progress as something with parts instead of one big sack.
Not a fancy bag. A bag with compartments and a plan. Here is what six months of daily use has shown me, plus one monthly car trip to my daughter's house two hours away. Ten reasons, in the order I actually noticed them. If you have ever set a project on the arm of a chair and come back to find the whole thing has slid onto the floor, you will recognize most of these.
One bag with a place for the work, the hooks and the gloves
Canvas, zippered, with a removable divider, three deep outside pockets and a zippered case for the hook set. The CRAFTISS organizer is the one I keep beside my chair.
Amazon See the CRAFTISS organizer on Amazon →Your hooks stop living at the bottom of the bag
My Clover set came as ten loose hooks with no case, and for a year they rolled around in whatever I carried them in. This bag comes with a zippered case, and that case swallows all ten along with small scissors and a tapestry needle. The three deep outside pockets take the rest: stitch markers, a row counter, the odds and ends I never sort. Nothing falls to the bottom anymore, because every piece has somewhere it is supposed to go.
One divider gives you two projects at once
There is a removable divider inside, and four compartments in total. Most weeks I use two of them: a baby blanket on one side, dishcloth cotton on the other. Pull the CRAFTISS divider out and the bag becomes one open space, which is what I do for a shawl or when a yarn cake is wider than I expected. That is a small thing, and it saves me carrying two bags out to the car and back in again.
Yarn feeds from the top instead of rolling across the floor
The bag has yarn slots at the top. At home I still use my wooden bowl on the side table, because it does that job and I am not going to fix what is not broken. Away from home the slots earn their keep. The strand comes up out of the bag and stays with the work instead of trailing across Beth's living room rug. I have come home with less cotton wrapped around chair legs since May than in the ten years before it.
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It carries by the top handle at my height
The bag weighs 1.4 pounds empty and has both a shoulder strap and a top handle. I am 5 foot 1, so the shoulder strap puts the bag around my hip and it swings against my leg the whole way down the hall. I use the top handle, which keeps it close to my side. If you are taller, the strap will probably be the thing you reach for. Both are there and the choice is yours.
The zipper keeps a project intact on the road
One zipper, all the way across. That sounds like nothing until you have driven two hours with an open tote in the back seat and arrived to find a ball of cotton has come undone and rolled under a suitcase. Once a month Walt and I drive to our daughter's, and the CRAFTISS bag rides on the back seat with the zipper closed. Everything arrives the way it left: the work, the hooks, the pattern with its folded corner still where I put it.
A whole project fits in 1000 cubic inches
The bag measures 10.23 by 10.23 by 12.2 inches and holds 1000 cubic inches. That is a baby blanket in progress with three skeins, the hook case, the gloves and a printed pattern, with room left to close the zipper. It will not take a jumbo skein sitting on top of a full blanket, and I would not pretend otherwise. For one project at a time, which is how most of us actually work, it is more room than the outside suggests.
The outside pockets hold what you reach for every five minutes
My gloves go in one outside pocket, because I put them on when a session runs past an hour and I do not want to open the bag to find them. Stitch markers go in another. These are slip pockets, open at the top and deep enough that nothing has jumped out yet. The difference is not really the pocket. It is that small things stopped sharing space with a hook set and a pair of scissors.
It stands beside the chair instead of slumping over
Canvas and a divider give it enough body to stand upright on the floor instead of folding in on itself the way my library tote did. The CRAFTISS bag sits on the floor beside my armchair, within reach without picking it up. My floor lamp is on my left, because my left hand throws a shadow on the stitches, and the bag is on the floor to my right. That arrangement has not moved since spring.
The warranty covers the parts that fail first
Zippers, stitching and hardware carry a five-year warranty once you register the bag. Zippers are what go on any bag I have owned long enough to love, so a warranty that names them specifically is worth more to me than a general promise. I registered mine the week it arrived and wrote the date inside the lid of my pattern box. If you are the sort who never registers anything, this reason will not move you.
Putting the project away takes about thirty seconds
Hooks into the case, gloves into the pocket, work into the compartment, zip it, set it down by the chair. Half a minute. That sounds like a small victory, and it is, but it is the reason my armchair still looks like a chair instead of a nest of yarn when someone stops by. Walt has not stepped over a strand of cotton since spring. He has noticed. He mentions it, usually while standing in the doorway with his coat still on.
What I'd Skip
If you already carry a bag you like and it works, do not replace it. A bag is not a skill and it will not finish a blanket for you. I bought this one because thirty years of digging in a tote had worn a groove in my patience, not because the tote was doing anything wrong exactly. The CRAFTISS bag solved a specific irritation: separate parts of a project sharing one open space.
Two things I would skip. The shoulder strap, if you are short. And buying it to hold a stash. It is a project bag, and the moment you ask it to hold four projects and eight skeins it stops being useful and starts being heavy, and you will set it down somewhere and not pick it up again. One project, one bag, and it will last long enough to be worth the shelf space.
Half a minute to put a project away is the reason my armchair still looks like a chair and not a nest of yarn.
One project, one bag, and the chair stays a chair
Removable divider, three outside pockets, an included zippered case for the hook set, and a shoulder strap or top handle depending on your height. Six months in, the CRAFTISS organizer is still by my chair.
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