Nasu Poochi (茄 ポーチ)

Hubby wanted a combination of adice bag & dice tray but he couldn't find anything that really suited his needs.  So, I decided that I would try to make one for him.  Using my Chiaogoo 4.5mm (US 7) needles and my Caron Plum Perfect yarn, here's how I made it:

Using this pattern as a guide, knit until I had a total of 96 sts for the base of the bag.

Purl 1 row.

Seed Stitch for 4.5cm (2 5/8 inches) (10 rows).

Purl 1 row.

Cat's Eye Lace (from Up, Down, All Around Stitchtionary bt Wndy Bernard) for 6cm (2.5 inches) (12 rows/3 repeats).

P1, K1 for 1 row.

Bind off.

Change to 3.5mm (US4) needles and create a 3 st i-cord for 70cm (27.75 inches) (151 rounds), weave it through the top lace "holes" to cinch the bag, and sew "ends" together to create an infinity loop.

Make another the base bottom and stitch it to the inside the base to provide more structure as the original bottom was not thick enough.

 

And, here's what it looks like:

Thoughts about this project:

Oh my god ... I thought this would be a quick and easy (one (1) day) project but, noooo ... I was sooo wrong!😳😱😖🤦‍♀️ I had to go through three (3!) patterns plus my own iteration of how I thought I could make the base in order to figure out how to make the base of the bag/tray.😳😖🤦‍♀️ My initial "guesstimate" and the first two (2) patterns kept puckering up in the center so it looked more like a boob than a flat bottom!😖😳😱🤦‍♀️🤷‍♀️😭😭😭 It took me four (4!) tries before it sunk in that my cast on simply didn't have enough stitches and I needed to cast on more stitches and simply sew up the center hole, rather than cast on with less stitches and not have a hole (because that was what was causing it to pucker up!).😖🤦‍♀️🤦‍♀️🤦‍♀️ But, I did figure it out (finally)!😁🎉🥳🙌 After making the base, making up the rest of the bag was easy.🎉🥳🙌 And now, Hubby has a custom dice bag & tray!🎉🥳🙌👍