Muud bags review
If you’ve been reading the blog for a while, you’ll have seen that I use Muud bags for my knitting project and out-and-about bags, and today’s post is a long overdue review now that I’ve been using them for a while. They are beautiful and you may well have admired them in shops and online yourself, but they’re also quite expensive and you may well have wondered if they’re worth the money. I can’t make that decision for you, but I can tell you what I think of the products that I have and now that I’ve been using them for some time, I feel that what I can write is more honest and useful than if I had just received them.
This pattern is Treasure Socks which you can find for free here
Back in 2022, I got a message from a Danish company I had never heard of asking me if I would like to try out some of their products. That company was Muud and it just so happened that their message arrived on the same day that I had been scrolling through Instagram and spotted a very attractive circular knitting bag that was quite different to anything else I’d seen. It seemed like my cue to go and find out a bit more about them, and after looking around on the internet and social media for a while, I decided that I liked what I saw (I will only accept something for review if I know that I would use it myself) and said I would love to try some products out!
Since I wrote this post, I’ve joined the Muud affiliate programme so I need to tell you that clicking on the links will connect you to the Muud site through my code, but because Muud is based in Denmark, it makes far more sense for you to buy the products from stores that are local to you if you decide you want to buy something. There’s a section below on where to buy.
Before I go into the details of the bags and accessories that I have, I want to talk to you about the quality of the products and the ethical standards of the company, both of which are important to me and most likely to you as well. Muud bags are leather which won’t suit everybody but that’s OK, there are enough choices in the world to fit with everybody’s values and if these aren’t for you, there will be other companies that will provide products that will be. Muud exclusively uses buffalo hide for their bags and source their leather from India where the welfare standards are different to the intensive cattle and pig-hide industries of Europe. The buffalo are farm-raised and free range, and Muud buys the hides from tried and trusted manufacturers who collaborate with the Leather Working Group which upholds rigorous standards for ethical treatment and animal welfare.
Muud also have an ethical responsibility towards the production of the bags and they use manufacturers who adhere to Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) conditions for the people who make the bags. This includes a safe and comfortable working location, adequate salaries and regular lunch breaks. There are strict policies against child labour, forced labour and bonded labour. You can read more on the Muud website here.
I didn’t buy my bags as Muud sent them to me to review, but I do buy plenty of other things in life and I know that everything has a price and that has to be paid somewhere along the line. I would always rather pay a bit more to know that the materials in whatever I am buying are properly sourced and that the people who have made whatever it is are kept safe and fairly compensated for their skills – we as knitters should know more than anyone that what we create takes time and effort and should be properly valued – and if whatever I am buying is good quality and well-made and provides a good living for someone else without breaking the bank, I think that’s reasonable.
In terms of quality of the product, I think it’s very high. The leather feels soft and supple, the bags are made and finished off to a high standard and the materials that they use – not just the leather but fabric, press stud closures, clips and zips as well – are also good quality. You can tell that you’ve got something expensive in your hands but you can also tell that it’s going to last. I honestly expect to be using these products for many years, if not for the rest of my knitting life.
I have already written a post about the first products that Muud sent to me – a Saturn project bag, Espoo scissors case and a Gimo backpack – and you can find that here, but I’m going to include them in this post so that I’ve got everything together.
Saturn
Saturn was the first bag to take my eye, and whilst I have no shortage of projects bags (many of them filled with WIPs 🙂 ), I had never seen anything quite like this. Oh, I knew that you could already buy leather project bags but to be honest, I’m not really a bag person so looking around at them just because I can is not something that I would ever spend my time doing (the same goes for shoes … just not my thing!), so what caught my eye about this one was the fact that the shape was different, and also the attention to detail. This wasn’t just a bag that knitters could use, it seemed to have been designed very specifically for knitters.
And more than that, this bag seemed to have been designed very specifically for sock knitters and it felt like this sock knitter in particular! There are all kinds of pockets on the inside and the outside for everything that I need to keep in one place for my socks. I can easily fit a 100g ball of yarn and a project inside (I’ve actually got four 50g balls of yarn in the bag in the photo above!), plus my needles, my little purse with all my stitch markers, my hand cream (that’s the white tube in the pocket), my massage roller (remind me to tell you about that another time – brilliant for knitters!), double pointed needles (I use the longer 20cm ones and although I have to lean them at a slant, they still fit in) and my scissors.
I can even fit a copy of my Project Super Socks notebook inside and still close the lid!
There was deliberate intention in that as this is my favourite project bag and I wanted to get my notebook inside, but I didn’t have to try to publish my notebook in a non-standard size because an A5 notebook fits in just fine. More than that, it makes it so useful if you’ve got a pattern that you want to carry around with you but don’t want to have fold into small squares or end up with it squashed and more than likely torn at the edges by the time you’ve finished using it.
Saturn comes in a few different sizes now from smaller than this one to an XL size which would be perfect for much bigger projects than socks. I would be surprised if it’s not Muud’s most popular product!
What do I like so much about the Saturn project bag? The size, for sure, and the pockets, and the fact that I can carry it about with me without it obviously looking like a knitting project bag. I’ve got some really lovely fabric ones but sometimes, I want to carry my knitting more obtrusively and this just looks like an unusual handbag (or not – not so small daughter sometimes carries a bag that looks like a coffee cup!).
Espoo
Up until Muud sent me an Espoo scissors case, I had never really bothered with scissors. I know! I’ve been knitting and crocheting for quite a few decades now and I could probably have counted on two hands the number of times I actually bothered to cut my yarn with scissors when I needed to change it (not counting neatening ends as I did use scissors then) as my teeth worked perfectly well. Oh dear, that’s so bad for your teeth!
The case doesn’t come with the scissors but a pair of those little gold bird scissors that so many crafters have (and I did admire them before I had a pair, just couldn’t be bothered to buy any as my teeth worked perfectly well …) fits beautifully. My pair is the 4½” (11.5cm) size and the case closes by pushing the strap through the bird’s legs and clicking into place with the press stud. You do need to be careful if you’re buying scissors to go into your case as they come in two sizes – you can see them here through this Amazon link so that you can make sure that you buy the right size wherever you get yours from.
What do I like so much about the Espoo scissors case? I don’t know but I really love it! 🙂 I just love being able to get my shiny bird scissors out of the case and snipping yarn with a satisfying ssssssnip! sound. The scissor are sharp and I know that they’re safe in the case and my bag won’t get damaged and my scissors won’t get lost but most of all, I think it’s because I feel really professional having a proper pair of craft scissors in a proper case! Oh, and my dentist is much happier too 🙂
Gimo
Oh, I do like a backpack and I loved the look of Gimo as soon as I saw it! I liked the idea of something a bit posher than my well-travelled fabric backpack that I could take out and about when I wanted to carry a bag but still needed to keep my hands free, and I also liked that Gimo has plenty of pockets because I think that the usefulness of a bag can be judged by the number of extra pockets for stuff that you might want to take with you 🙂
This photo was taken on Saltburn beach way back in March 2022 when I went there with my friend Lucy for a weekend of chatting, knitting and generally soaking up a bit of the sea air. I thought that my rucksack (backpack) looked very at home there on the beach next to my boots whilst I got the sun on my toes and worked a few rounds of my socks. You can tell this is an old photo, those Winter Icicle socks are long since finished and I wear them regularly!
Gimo has both a drawstring closure which gives the bag that classic backpack shape when it’s pulled tight, and a zip so that you know that whatever is inside your bag is safe.
You can see that there are pockets on the front of the backpack which would be covered by the flap, and there’s another zipped pocket on the side …
The flap is held in place by a magnet – that’s what that round circle is on the front of the bag and there’s a matching one on the flap. That’s the only thing about this bag that is slightly disappointing – the magnet closure comes open very easily with the movement of the bag and so you need to make sure that you’ve either got the drawstring tight or the zip closed to keep your belongings safe, but it’s a sensible thing to do that anyway. My bag is a couple of years old so Muud may well have updated that now, but I think that a stronger magnet or a press stud might feel more secure. If I remember my science rightly, you can make a magnet stronger by stroking it with a more powerful magnet so I could try that – I can also remember being told that magnets always need to be attached to something and of course with a bag the two halves of the magnet are not always attached so it may be that I can improve the “stick” of the closure myself. I’ll give it a go!
There’s a carrying strap as well as shoulder straps so you don’t always have to have the bag on your back, and yet another zipped pocket on the back – as well as more pockets inside too!
What do I like so much about the Gimo backpack? The roomy interior and how I can carry so much without feeling as if I look like I’m heading off on an international expedition! I also like that being of leather, it looks better in certain situations than my old, battered one and I could get away with it as a large handbag if I needed to.
Fast forward two years and I am still using both bags and my scissors case. I regularly see Muud bags online which is lovely as obviously other people think they’re as nice as I do, and I’m even thinking about buying another bag for myself as a replacement for my everyday handbag which isn’t big enough to fit my sock project in when I can’t carry my Saturn bag – for me, being offered something to try out and then being ready to buy more from that company is a sign that it’s good stuff! I’d had my eye on a Hiba bag; a mini shopper-type bag and I’d been saving up to buy one when I got another message from Muud asking me if I’d like to try out another of their bags. Well, I don’t need to tell you, dear reader, that I thought all my birthdays and Christmases had come at once!
A short while later, a large box arrived containing a Hiba bag and a surprise, a Civ needle case, and I’ll tell you all about them too!
Hiba
Have I become the kind of person who goes from stuffing everything they need to carry into their coat pockets to someone who carries a large (but not too large) shopper/project bag? Oh yes, I absolutely have! This is Hiba and I can tell you that I absolutely love this bag. In this photo, it’s on the train heading up to Leeds for a university offer day and I’ve got knitting, drinks and snacks comfortably tucked in there along with my other essentials. I take it out with me whenever I go somewhere that isn’t just a quick whizz to the supermarket or the petrol station, and I can fit my drinks bottle, my knitting, my 100 pairs of specs (no, not really that many pairs but I do have reading glasses, seeing glasses, driving glasses, sunglasses … I don’t want varifocals and my penance is to carry around a ridiculous number of pairs of glasses to suit every occasion), more hand cream, pens … oh, I can fit so much into this bag! It’s a bit like when I used to carry enough round in a nappy bag to be able to repel an advancing army, but it’s so much better because now, I don’t need to be wrangling small people at the same time!
Look at that! It’s pocket heaven!
Can you see that small strap on the left hand side attached to two D rings? Oh, that is one of my favourite things about this bag because if I unclip one end from the D ring, I can attach my car keys so that they don’t disappear into the bottom of the bag! I choose to clip my keys to the strap and leave them in the bottom of my bag so I just pull them up by the strap, but you could also put the strap through the loop of your keyring too so they sat higher in the bag. I can’t tell you how fabulous this is – honestly, if anyone could have seen me dancing about with the bag in my hands when I worked out what that was they’d have thought I was completely nuts, but I must have lost hours of my life searching for keys in the bottom of my bags, shaking the bags to listen for them jingling, panicking that they’re not even in the bag at all and then finally finding them when I’ve turned out my pockets and emptied the contents of whatever bag I was holding onto the floor. It’s not what you want in a cold, dark car park in the rain!
That large padded pouch on the right hand side is just the right size for my laptop if I choose to stand it up in the bag – it sticks out of the top which isn’t always ideal and you might not want to do that in certain circumstances, but my laptop also fits perfectly into the main body of the bag itself so it’s out of sight, and something smaller like a tablet or iPad would definitely fit into the pouch without being too obvious. There’s a drinks bottle holder (that’s the other pouch on the right), two pockets on the left – one which is perfect for a glasses case – and a second one for more specs, phones, pens, whatever you want to put in there. There are separate pen holders, “secret” zipped pockets and a carrying strap so you can use the handles or the straps as it suits you.
What do I like so much about the Hiba project bag? It’s like a TARDIS, bigger on the inside than it looks on the outside, and yet it still doesn’t look like you’re carrying all your worldly belongings in one bag. It’s swallowed up an extra cardigan, yarn for two sock projects (listen, it was two hours each way to Leeds on the train and you don’t want to run out of knitting, do you?) and there was still room for more. The only downside is that you do end up being the person who carries all the stuff (“Have you got room for this in your bag?”), but it’s been such a long time since I carried a bag that made me feel great that I really don’t mind!
Civ
Civ is the only product that I haven’t got quite so much use out of since it arrived with me in January, but that’s down to circumstances rather than the product itself. It’s an interchangeable needle case with room for tips and cables and whilst I do use those, I don’t use them very often as sock needles tend to be fixed circulars (I know there is an interchangeable sock needle set now, but I don’t use that). However, I am still intending to knit myself a jumper and after the four or five starts I’ve made on it, I know that I need a few different cables and needle tips so this will be just right to keep in that project bag so that I don’t get them mixed up (I may have had to re-start because I mixed up the needle tips which look very similar and may even have been knitting with two different size tips at one point 🙄).
It’s got spaces for eight sets of needle tips plus a pocket for the cables, and there’s another pocket on the back too.
Honestly, if there was one thing that I said that Muud did brilliantly well (amongst the other things they do brilliantly well), it would be the number of pockets they manage to fit into everything. You can easily fit a small tape measure and some stitch markers in there, possibly even some wool needles and you’ve got almost everything you need in one pouch. (No scissors but you could probably slide them inside too – I don’t recommend using your teeth! 🤣)
What do I like so much about the Civ needle case? The pockets! I love the way it folds up so neatly and at 5½” (14cm) square, it’s small enough to slip into any project bag but still holds everything you would need.
I hope this review has been useful and you love your Muud bags and/or accessories as much as I do if you choose to buy any of them!
Where to buy Muud products
As well as a very large range of products for knitters and crocheters, Muud also produce a large range of bags and accessories for pets, general lifestyle, DIY, hairdressers and travel so it’s quite nice to have a look around their website just because you can.
As I said at the start of this post, Muud is a Danish brand and if you go to their website, you’ll find the full range of bags and accessories but shipping may be expensive so you may prefer to buy from a stockist in your own country. There is a map on the website but I think the best thing to do is to email and ask them if you can’t see a stockist that looks local to you.
I’ve got a list of the UK stockists which I’ll give below – the stockists below have confirmed to me that they have Muud products in stock and this list is current as of the date of first publication of this post – but I can’t guarantee to keep it updated so you will need to check either with Muud or the stockist if you find this post in the future and want to buy something.
loving my Muud bags need to look for the civ one as my next purchase
I think Civ will be so useful if you use lots of interchangeable needles! 🙂 xx
They look wonderful – I will be putting at least one of them on my wish list for my birthday.
Great reviews and looks like a great product.
They’re really lovely, and there are more stockists in the UK now than when I first started using the bags so there’s more chance of finding somewhere to go and look at them first 🙂 xx
they really do look good for work on progress when out and about
Yes, they’re perfect for that, and it’s nice to have a more solid project bag to store my knitting in the house too 🙂 xx
Never heard of these so thanks for the review. I would be inclined to get the backpack and I like the idea of a scissor case too!
They have bags to suit everybody and they adding more all the time! The scissors case is fab! 🙂 xx
Thank you for this review. The bags look amazing, as I keep hoping my drinks bottle won’t spill over my small knitting bag.
I’m going to put them on my wish list.
Oh silly old me , I have to buy my presents myself.
I’ve had a few drink accidents as well so having a space especially for a drink does give you a bit more confidence! I think it’s absolutely fine to have a wish list for presents to buy yourself – in fact, that’s an excellent idea! 🙂 xx
I love bags, they all look lovely. I don’t tend to carry knitting around with me. If I go somewhere that I want to take knitting, I take my project bag plus a handbag. Maybe a bag with space for a project is a good idea. There have been times that knitting would’ve been good to have with me.
I used to be the same, and there are some circumstances now where I would still do that if I needed to take a smaller bag. I’ve even been known to squish my yarn and knitting into my pocket, but it’s nice to have more space! 🙂 xx
Your bags all look good, I love bags! I don’t carry knitting with me all the time, maybe if I had a bigger bag I might. Enjoyed reading your review, thank you.