A friend of mine showed me some tea wallets she had sewn up for Christmas gifts, and when I saw another dear friend carrying her tea bags and sweetener packets in a plastic bag–imagine! I leapt to my needles immediately. You can definitely knit one of these in the time it takes to view a major sporting event.
Tea Wallet
1/2 ball of your favorite dishcloth cotton
US6 needles
Button
Snap (optional)
Cast on 18 stitches. Slip the first stitch of every row.
Knit 2 rows.
Beginning with a purl row, knit 20 rows in stockinette stitch. Your knitting should be a square at this point (check by folding your knitting on the diagonal to see if it makes a triangle) so if it’s not, add or subtract rows until it is (you are smarter than this pattern. Srsly.).
Make the first turning ridge: starting with the wrong side facing you, knit 2 rows, purl 2 rows.
Starting with a purl row, knit 22 rows of stockinette. When you fold the piece at the first turning ridge, the end on the needle should extend 1 row above cast-on edge.
Make the second turning ridge: starting with the wrong side facing you, knit 2 rows, purl 1 row, knit 2 rows.
Begin the cover. You can knit the cover without a buttonhole (skip the directions for adding the buttonhole and continue in pattern), stitch a snap on the inside of the cover, and add a button on the outside of the cover for decoration.
Cover pattern (remember to slip the first stitch, even though it’s not specified):
Row 1: Knit 6, purl 6, knit 6
Row 2: Purl 6, knit 6, purl 6
Row 3: Repeat row 1
Row 4: Repeat row 2
Row 5: Knit 3, purl 6, knit 6, purl 3
Rows 6-8: Repeat row 5
Row 9: Purl 6, knit 6, purl 6
Row 10: Knit 6, purl 6, knit 6
Row 11: Repeat row 7
Row 12: Repeat row 8
Row 13: Purl 3, knit 6, purl 6, knit 3
Row 14: Repeat row 13
Row 15: Add buttonhole: Purl 3, knit 5, bind off 2, purl 5, knit 3
Row 16: Purl 3, knit 5, cast on 2, purl 5, knit 3
Repeat rows 1-8 (knit more or fewer rows until you’re two or three rows short of making the cover a square). With the right side facing you, purl one row, knit one row, then cast off (knit the first stitch of the cast off row to make the corner square).
Sew in ends. Stitch up sides. Sew on button or snap and buttons.
This pattern is free for your personal use, or to knit as a fundraising project for charity (please tell me so I can brag on you!). Please contact me if you have ideas for other uses.
Peg of Tilling Does Some Knitting 
Of all the cute and funny things people decide to knit…. This one I Like. I carry stevia packets in my purse for iced tea when I’m out and this is sooo much nicer than a ziplock bag. I think I’ll take the concept and use a different stitch pattern. Thanks for the idea!
Love it! I tried to design one, but this is better. Thanks! 😉
Such a cute bag ,I will sure make this.
Made a few and can’t get pics because they get swiped by the time I’m done, lol.
I made one a bit bigger and sent it to a friend with a sample packet of my favorite coffee.
I would like to make some of these in crochet. Do you mind telling me what size the bag is? So many of my friends drink tea, and many work, so this would be a great little gift to give them. Plus I and my daughter are tea drinkers and would love to be able to carry our own tea bag & sweetner with us in such an adorable bag.
Thanks,
gail e
Thank you for asking about the tea wallet! The finished size is 3.5 by 3.5 inches. Please post your finished pattern on Ravelry! Would you be willing to let people sell finished wallets for charity?
This pattern is adorable. I saw the pattern and had to make one immediately. Even though I have Christmas gifts still on the needles. It knits up really quick. I will need to go buy a button for it though :P. I will definitely make more of these. Possibly with other stitch patterns for the top.
Thanks for the pattern!
I absolutely loved this project!! I made me with the intent of giving it to my grandmother and my mother stole it for her phone!! It is a perfect fit thank you so much
Thank you for the pattern, I just made it, it’s the first ever thing I’ve knitted! I’ll be whipping tea bags out of it at work with pride.
Love your Tea Wallet!!! I am part of the Patriotic Purlers. We knit for our veterans. We will make piles of these & fill with tea bags for the women at the Womens’ Veterans Outpatient Clinic at DJ Dingle VA Hospital in Detroit, MI.
I love these little bags. I have made several.
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I loved this pattern. I just made two for my sister (she loves to accessorize…), have the feeling that I’ll be making many more in the future ^_^ Thanks.
Hi there! I adore this wallet, and have just started trying to make my own – but I don’t understand the slipping of the first stitch. When I try it purlwise (knitwise just makes the second stitch fall off, obviously) once I get to the end of the second row that slipped stitc is just a great big loop that I can’t do anything with. Is it necessary to the design, or could I do without this until my brain allows me to slip stitches properly? x
Hi–thanks for your question! The only reason to slip the first stitch is to make nice even edges on the side of the wallet, so nothing bad will happen if you don’t do it. You should just slip the first stitch of the row, knit to the end of the row, turn your work, slip the first stitch, knit to the end of the row, knitting the original slipped stitch like all the other stitches. Does that make sense? Does that help?
Elizabeth Zimmerman suggests slipping the first stitch and purling the last stitch of every row to make a more braided edge.
Thanks SO much for the reply, can’t thank you enough for the advice! xxx
So cute! I’ll have to make some for my teabag friends. I’m a loose tea user myself. Just shlurp around the leaves!
Hey there, I love loose leaf tea! I’m actually knitting a bunch of these up for my customers, because I sell Steeped Tea, and we actually sell empty tea bags to use for loose leaf tea on the go! Shoot me a message or check out my website if you’d like to hear more, it’s great stuff and we deliver all over (:
http://dft.ba/-creativiTEA
yourcreativiTEA@yahoo.com
Love this pattern!! Making one for my daughter and another for my brother, a major tea drinker. Thank you for such an easy to understand pattern. I just started knitting 2 days ago and have almost finished one of these!
This would be an awesome item for a perpetual tea party. Make these up, put a tea bag inside with a note that says something about enjoy the cup of tea and think about me, (or call me, IM, e-mail, text me, etc.) Replace the tea bag, and mail to someone else.
I absolutely love this pattern. Making one now for my MIL. I have a question on the pattern. I am at row 11 and I am a bit confused.
Row 5: Knit 3, purl 6, knit 6, purl 3
Rows 6-8: Repeat row 5
Row 9: Purl 6, knit 6, purl 6
Row 10: Knit 6, purl 6, knit 6
Row 11: Repeat row 7 (should this say repeat row 9)
Row 12: Repeat row 8 (should this say repeat row 10)
Thanks
Angi
I apologize for being so long approving this comment and getting back to you–my intention was to knit myself a tea wallet so I could tell you for sure whether that’s a mistake, and fix it, but I haven’t done it yet. Just looking at it (and y’know, I thought I’d edited it pretty well…) repeating lines 7 & 8 (which would be repeating line 5) doesn’t make a lot of sense. Fixing this is on my to-do list–thank you for asking me about it!
Thank you for this great pattern. It is exactly what I have been searching for.!!
Kathy M. Jackson, Ga
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Getting ready to knit over 100 for a charity fundraiser.
Wow! That’s a lot–are you knitting all 100 yourself or do you have a team?
I expect a team. I just finished the prototype. It’s to be for a 25th anniversary event for a non-profit. There will be helpers, I’m sure!
Very good write-up. I absolutely appreciate this website.
Thanks!
It would be nice if you would cater to us Tea-drinking Canadians with the added feature of the metric system. eg. the size of the needle in mm.
A US 6 needle is 4mm. There’s a chart here: http://www.yarnfwd.com/main/needleconv.html
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