Crochet Woven Basket

I think we've all been having the "Back to Work Blahs" so I haven't been working on anything big (sewing, etc.). I did cash in the rest of my Christmas gift cards on a few more sewing supplies, some yarn, and a magazine of crochet patterns. I was pretty psyched about the crochet patterns because they were for things besides scarves, hats, and blankets! One of the patterns that caught my eye was this woven basket pattern. I thought this might be a good way to use up some of the yarn I had in my craft closet and learn a few new stitches.

The yarn in the basket is only a *small* sampling of all the yarn I have left in my closet

The basket was a success in terms of teaching me a few new stitches. I learned the back-post double crochet and the front-post double crochet, which create the basket-weave texture (see picture below). While it was awkward to perform the stitch one-handed (lots of looping involved), it was fairly straightforward to understand what to do. And once I got the hang of the pattern (3 one way, 3 the other way, etc) it was a cinch.

Basket-weave pattern created with front-post and back-post stitches

Of course the biggest problem for me is still crocheting plain, single crochet stitches in a given interval. You can see the plain single crochet rectangle in this picture. While I've mastered counting the number of stitches across a row, I keep forgetting what row I'm on, thus causing a few problems. Normally with a scarf or a blanket it doesn't matter what row you're on because you can always stop when you get where you need to be, but with projects like this that involve crocheting down the side of the original piece, you really ought to keep track of what you're doing!

The beginnings

Stitch markers

 While I can easily go back and "check" how many stitches I put across the row, I really can't see the rows very well. Oh well, maybe with more practice. So I've started using stitch markers - you can see them as the orange and blue plastic pins in the picture. They can get kind of snarled up the smaller your rows are, so I tried to devise a system of placing the pins every other row. I think I've finally got a system that works with the pins, but I was also considering doing something very basic like having an empty bowl and dropping a bean or something into it every time I finish a row.

As an added gripe - why on earth are crochet patterns SO difficult to read?! I always end up having to either watch a video or create a diagram to make sure I understand what's going on with the stitches. You can see the sticky note I added to the pattern above to make sure I understood exactly what was going on. Unreasonably difficult. I really liked the crochet YouTube channel The Crochet Crowd because the guy in the videos always makes a point of drawing out a diagram and explaining it before showing the pattern. It's not rocket science, so why are these pattern makers making it seem so much more complicated than it is?!

This project was also good practice on crocheting in the round, a skill I've been working on with a variety of other failed projects over the past couple months. It's a skill I'd like to perfect so I can make amigurumi, perhaps the subject of a future post?

The end result isn't very sturdy - it's more like a very thick tote bag - but it will work great for holding on-going crochet projects next to the couch :) It would also work well for holding magazines or bathroom items I think. And completely machine washable!

One thing this project absolutely failed at was using up my yarn stores! I thought I'd be able to do the basket with one skein of yarn because I apparently have no concept of quantity and I ended up the half-used skein I already had, plus one more full skein, plus half of another skein. Guess I'll have to find a new project to use up the rest!

Materials:

• 2 skeins Lion Brand Vanna's Choice Worsted Weight in Oatmeal
• Size G crochet Hook

Time:

Approximately 6 hours - finished it off-and-on over a week.