An Experimental Gift

In my efforts to make gifts for people rather than buy stuff, I decided to make something for a friend’s ‘special’ (aka ‘scary’) birthday recently.

She is quite fussy so I wanted to make something she’d like and use and that wouldn’t clash with anything in her lovely house.

Perhaps I shouldn’t have chosen her then for my first attempt at crocheting Moroccan Tile stitch and raid my stash for the necessary super chunky wool no matter what colour. Hindsight is a wonderful thing.

Anyway, here is the result of my well meaning endeavours……..

a lined basket – with handles no less – using the aforementioned stitch.

This is quite a large basket measuring around 8 inches in diameter and about 7 inches high.  It’s made with super chunky yarn and is also lined with yarn of the same weight so it’s substantial enough to stand up on its own.  I used a free pattern which, reading the comments, appears to have caused a few problems with getting the size of the lining right in relation to the exterior.

I went down half a hook size for the outside (I used a 5.5mm) and a whole size and a half for the lining – a 4.5mm (won’t do that again!)

Blocking wasn’t mentioned and the jury seems to be out on whether it works on acrylic anyway but the lining was just a teensy bit small so I had to pull it tighter than it was possibly meant to be pulled in order to join it to the exterior.  It became obvious that this had caused some narrowing at the handle level so I tried to make it as neat as possible and used a large glass circular vase to hold it open and pegs (pinging off now and then) to hold the handle section up.

That’s not the lining you see through the glass but face cloths to pad the sides out a bit around the vase.

Then I gave it all a squirt with the steam iron and left it for a while.

You can see that the basket goes narrower just before the handle section starts which it shouldn’t plus it isn’t entirely symmetrical which is all due to my overcompensating for other people saying their lining came out too big.

 I wondered about giving it to her for her birthday after all because it’s not 100% perfect and I was, therefore, not 100% happy with it.  In the end I bought some pretty hand towels to put in it, wrapped it in cellophane with a big bow and hoped she’d appreciate the fact I’d made her something even if she only uses it to let the cat jump in and out of.

I am definitely going to make another of these – they are large and very useful.  I love the effect of the stitch which took a bit of getting used to but the free pattern I used had written and video tutorials which I followed avidly.  You can find Tamara Kelly’s pattern on Ravelry and  here

…..and this is how the experts do it.

Next time I will see if I have something in plain colours I can double up to super chunky thickness – I have lots of aran and dk weight wools in my stash – as I think I prefer the original version in the plain colours.  Although I think the two different variegated yarns I used also create quite an interesting effect.  This was a really fun project – a bit of a challenge but that never hurts once in a while does it?