Misty Starlight Tarot Bag Knitting Pattern

Estimated Reading Time: 6 minutes

All-Over Eyelet Pinpricks Shed Light on the Deck Inside

Misty Starlight Tarot Bag by Joy Vernon. Hand knit in Yarn Bee Dee-Lish Boutique yarn, in color #30 Plum-Bunny, 90% Acrylic, 10% Alpaca; nylon satin drawstring cord with glass crow beads. Shown with The Tarot of the Sevenfold Mystery by Robert M. Place.

The delicate all-over pattern of this four-point star tarot bag looks misty and romantic with a whisper of soft, fuzzy alpaca wool. The variegated yarn fades from lavender to deeper shades, like a starry sky just before dawn. Double the stitches in the first rows gives the gathered ruffle of the drawstring closure a full-blown blossom look. The eyelet lace in a simple quatrefoil pattern lets you peek into the bag to see what deck it holds. This pattern is slow and leisurely, asking you to relax under warm wool with a careful, repetitive pattern.

The top-down pattern is knit in the round on three double pointed needles. The bottom is shaped using my signature decrease sequence, producing a made-to-measure fit for a standard tarot deck, in or out of its tuck box. A stitched seam secures the bottom, swaddling your cards safely.

Purchased satin cord is a quick draw to the finish. The drawstrings are threaded from both sides of the bag for a symmetrical look. Glass crow beads are a cool touch against the downy yarn, giving you something solid to grasp when pulling the cords closed while adding a glint of brightness.

The bag is sized to fit a standard tarot deck. A big skein of yarn is enough for ten of these darling, dainty bags, so sit back, put on Stardust by Hoagy Carmichael, and knit one for each of your tarot friends (decks or people!). Weighing in at a petite 15 grams per bag, this pattern is a perfect stash-buster too.

Download a pdf of this pattern or find it on Ravelry.

Sizing and Materials

Skill Level

  • Intermediate
  • Techniques used: knit stitch, basic eyelet lace techniques (knit two together, slip slip knit, and yarn-overs), knitting in the round, double pointed needles
  • Tip: The pattern itself is not too hard if you’re already familiar with knitting in the round on DPNs and basic lace techniques, but to get the eyelet pattern evenly distributed around the whole bag, it wraps across one needle to the next. The result is that there are occasional yarn-overs at either the beginning or end of a needle. Watch these yarn-overs carefully and you can proceed without a hitch. It helps to count stitches at the end of every needle, especially when you’re working the rows with the yarn-overs at the start or end of the needle. After the Row 3 decrease, the stitch count remains steady at 16 stitches per needle on three needles.
  • Tip: My easiest tarot bag pattern is the Diamond Window Pane Tarot Bag.

Finished Size

  • Approximately 4 3/4” wide by 7 1/2” tall—fits a standard size tarot deck

Gauge

  • 22 st = 4” in stockinette. Gauge is relevant but not critical.

Materials

  • 5.3 oz (590 yds) Yarn Bee Dee-Lish Boutique, Color: Plum Bunny, 90% Acrylic 10% Alpaca
  • 1 yd 1/8” satin cord, cut in two pieces, 18” each
  • 4 or 8 crow beads

Each bag weighs in at only 15 grams, so you could knit ten bags from one skein.

Supplies

  • US Size 5 (3.75 mm) DPNs
  • Tapestry Needle
  • Scissors
Misty Starlight Tarot Bag by Joy Vernon. Hand knit in Yarn Bee Dee-Lish Boutique yarn, in color #30 Plum-Bunny, 90% Acrylic, 10% Alpaca; nylon satin drawstring cord with glass crow beads.

Abbreviations

  • CO cast on
  • DPNs double pointed needles
  • g grams
  • k knit
  • k2tog knit two stitches together
  • mm millimeter
  • oz ounce
  • ssk slip the first stitch as if to knit, slip the second stitch as if to knit, then insert the left-hand needle into the front of both stitches and knit them together
  • st stitch
  • yds yards
  • yo yarn over

Misty Starlight Tarot Bag Instructions

Misty Starlight Tarot Bag by Joy Vernon. Hand knit in Yarn Bee Dee-Lish Boutique yarn, in color #30 Plum-Bunny, 90% Acrylic, 10% Alpaca; nylon satin drawstring cord with glass crow beads. Double stitches in the first two rows of the Misty Starlight Tarot Bag give the gathered ruffle a full look.

Casting On

CO 96 stitches, divide between three DPNs, 32 stitches per needle.

Join to knit in the round.

Ruffled Cuff and Eyelet for Drawstring

Rows 1-2: Knit

Row 3: * K2tog; repeat from * (48 stitches remaining, 16 per needle)

Row 4: *K2tog, yo; repeat from *

Rows 5-9: Knit

Pattern

Row 10: * K4, yo, ssk, k2; repeat from *

Row 11 and odd rows: Knit

Row 12 * K2, k2tog, yo, k1, yo, ssk, k1; repeat from *

Row 14: * K4, yo, ssk, k2; repeat from *

Row 16: knit

Row 18: * Yo, ssk, k6; repeat from *

Row 20: * K1, yo, ssk, k3, k2tog, yo; repeat from *

Row 22: * Yo, ssk, k6; repeat from *

Row 24: Knit

Row 26: * k4, yo, ssk, k2; repeat from *

Row 28: * k2, k2tog, yo, k1, yo, ssk, k1; repeat from *

Row 30: * K4, yo, ssk, k2; repeat from *

Row 32: Knit

Row 34: * Yo, ssk, k6; repeat from *

Row 36: * K1, yo, ssk, k3, k2tog, yo; repeat from *

Row 38: * Yo, ssk, k6; repeat from *

Row 39: Knit

Shaping the Bottom of Bag

Row 40: K16, k2tog, k28, k2tog (46 stitches remaining)

Row 41: K16, k2tog, k26, k2tog (44 stitches)

Row 42: K16, k2tog, k24, k2tog (42 stitches)

Row 43: K16, k2tog, k22, k2tog (40 stitches)

Row 44: K16, k2tog, k20, k2tog (38 stitches)

Row 45: K16, k2tog, k18, k2tog (36 stitches)

Row 46: K16, k2tog, k16, k2tog (34 stitches)

Row 47: K16, k2tog, k14, k2tog (32 stitches)

Finishing

Bind off and cut the yarn leaving an 18” tail.

Stitch the bottom together with an overhand stitch. Weave in ends.

Drawstrings

I used 1 yard purchased satin cord for the drawstrings. I cut the cord into two 18” pieces, threading one piece from the left side of the bag and the other piece from the right side. Alternately, you can use i-cord, lucet cord, finger cord, or narrow ribbon. Decorate the ends of the cord with crow beads or other beads with a wide hole, knotting under the beads.

Download the pdf! Add this bag to your Ravelry queue! See all my designs on Ravelry!

Check out all my tarot bag patterns here on Completely Joyous.

Joy Vernon
Joy Vernon

Joy Vernon is widely recognized as an expert tarot teacher and respected community leader. With over twenty-five years’ experience teaching energetic and esoteric modalities, Joy brings expertise and practiced familiarity to her specialty of esoteric tarot, which layers astrological and qabalistic symbolism onto the traditional tarot structure. Under her leadership, the Denver Tarot Meetup grew into one of the largest and most active tarot-specific meetups in the world. Now Joy runs the Greater Seattle Tarot Meetup. Joy works as a tarot reader, astrologer, and teacher in Burien, Washington. To learn more, please visit JoyVernon.com.

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