Following on from the crochet madness of Dina’s scarf I thought I’d have a go at making something else and as you might have seen on the Facebook Page or Instagram I decided to have a go at The Chunky Crochet Basket by Elizabeth Trantham.

Heading outside to crochet in the sun, I was grateful I’d managed to get the bottom of the basket made before the rain clouds appeared and chased me inside.  Thankfully Elizabeth has put photo tutorials to accompany the pattern up on her blog, great if you’re like me and assume because you can ‘do a little crochet’ you must be able to conquer the most complicated of patterns.

In her original basket, Elizabeth uses 2 strands of a super chunky yarn held together and an 8mm hook.  This means the resulting basket is sturdy and stands up independently like you might expect a basket to do.

Cue my attempt

It’s general state of floppy isn’t really that bad.

I followed Elizabeth’s pattern but used 3 strands of Rico’s Country Aran held together and a 7mm hook.  This meant the base of the basket when I’d reached the suggested 48 stitches was a little on the small side so I continued increasing my stitches until I had 72. My basket is approximately 10″/26cm’s across it’s diameter.

The basket is a very usable height at /19cm7.5″and as you can see I decided not to add the handles.  I did work them up, but didn’t like the way mine turned out and my yarn was running a little short, so I completed 14 rounds of the half trebles.

 

Perfect for my current crochet project, one of them anyway.

 

I’m thinking ideal gifts for friends?  Ones that don’t crochet though because I’m pretty sure I had more than my original 72 stitches when it came to finishing off the basket with double crochet (ahem).

Happy Knitting or crochet.