Before I even get into this post, I am going to apologize for the crappy photography. I’ve been in bed all weekend with a (self diagnosed) sinus infection, so most of the pictures were taken with my terrible camera phone and a lamp for lighting.

For the month of March, the challenge was to create a craft made primarily with yarn.

I learned how to do basket weaving in college so I carried my knowledge over to this project which is part of The Craft Challenge (more info below this post). Baskets are very easy to make, just a bit time consuming. If you’d like to make one, set up your working area when you’re catching up on your shows or maybe listening to a podcast. It will take a few hours but exact timing will depend on the size of your basket. As you can see, mine is pretty small and it took me about 1.5 hours to make.

Things You Will Need:
Yarn
Rope
Scissors
Canvas Needle

**For the rope, you can use anything. I used jute for this one, but in the past I’ve used a variety of cording. Just make sure it’s thick and sturdy.

**I cut off 3.5 yards of yarn to start with and about 4 yards of rope. I’ll show you how to add more yarn when you get to the end of your cut. The amount of rope you cut off will be what you can use for your basket.

Step 1
Lay your rope and your yarn side by side. Hold the ends together and wrap the yarn around both pieces like in the images above. You want to be wrapping toward the ends.

Step 2
Fold the wrapped part of the rope in half and begin to wrap more of the yarn so that it looks like somewhat of a teardrop.

Step 3
Begin to coil the wrapped rope like in the image above.

Thread the needle with the opposite end of your yarn and push it down through the center of the coil to anchor the sections together. This is what I will refer to from here on out as your anchor stitch.

Step 4
Continue to wrap and coil your yarn, making sure to do an anchor stitch about every 4 wraps. But when you anchor, it will be against the previous section, not down the center.

When you’re happy with the size of the base, all you have to do is layer the rope on top of one another, rather than side by side, to create the sides of the basket.

Continue to do this until your basket is complete.

How to end a yarn segment
When you’re getting close to the end of the yarn segment and are ready to start another one, wrap it around the rope a few times, anchor it and push the needle back through the last several wraps you made. Then you can cut off any excess yarn.

How to start a new yarn segment
To start a new yarn segment, we are going to do exactly what we did it step 1 except we won’t be folding it in half.

Lay the yarn on top of the rope and start wrapping toward the beginning of the yarn cut. So, I would take the section I’m holding onto in the picture, wrap it 4 times around both the yarn and the rope, thread the other end of the yarn through the needle and anchor it to the previous section.

The finishing stitches
When you get to the end of the basket, you’re going to make several anchor stitches (no wraps) until it completely covers the end of your rope. Make a few more anchor stitches onto the section you just anchored the rope to.

Last, the same way you end your yarn segment, push the needle through your last few wraps and cut off the excess.

When you’re finished, you’ll have a nice little yarn basket to hold anything you want! I chose to put my essential oils in it since it was the perfect size.

Click the links in the banner to go the each crafter’s blog to see what they made!