Crocheted & felted Easter basket

This can be used for an Easter egg hunt, or as a decoration on the Easter breakfast table. Change the colors, and you have a basket for every occasion :) Note that this basket is fairly deep (to have room for lots and lots of candy, of course!), so if you'd like a lower basket you can simply skip a round or two before the colored band.

You will need:

* 8mm crochet hook

* Brown pure wool yarn (bulky)

* A little green wool yarn (or the color you prefer)

Pattern:

With brown yarn and 8mm hook,

Chain 5, join with sl st to make a ring

Chain 3, 11 dc in the ring, sl st to close round - 12 sts

Chain 3, dc in same space, dc inc in each st around, sl st to close - 24 sts

Chain 3, dc in same space, dc in next, *dc inc, dc* around, sl st to close - 36 sts

Chain 3, dc in next 4 sts, dc inc, *5 dc, dc inc* around, sl st to close - 42 sts

Chain 3, dc around 3 rounds

Change to green yarn

Chain 3, dc around 2 rounds

Change to brown yarn

Chain 2, hdc around, sl st to close

Edge:

This is made with backwards single crochet, or crab stitch. If you don't know how to do it, check out this video tutorial.

Crab stitch all the way around the edge

Fasten off

Handle:

With brown yarn and 8mm hook,

Chain 8, dc in 4th chain from hook, dc to end - 5 sts

Chain 3, turn, dc across - 5 sts

Repeat the last row until the handle is 23 rows long

Fasten off

Assembly:

Sew the ends of the handle to the inside of the basket, leaving 16 stitches on either side of the handle.

Felting:

Put the basket in the washing machine on a normal cycle on 40-60 degrees C. Use a small amount of detergent, and if possible, reduce the amount of water. Add a towel or two to increase agitation, but I recommend that you use similar colors and towels that leave little lent.

Remember that you can always repeat the washing if you want it to felt more. It's better to felt it twice than to ruin it the first time :)

Shape the basket while it's wet and let it dry in shape. If you want a flat bottom, press it lightly against a flat surface and let it dry standing.

If you don't want to felt your basket you can just use a smaller hook to get firmer stitches. For this example (to the right on the picture) I have used a slightly thicker yarn and a 4mm hook, and the handle is also shortened by about five rows.

Red heart

Start with one of the tops:

With 3.5mm hook and red yarn,

6 sc in ring

Inc around - 12 sts

*1 sc, inc* six times - 18 sts

Sc around 2 rounds

Break yarn for first top, make another following the same pattern

After completing the last st on the second top, jump to the first top and sc 15

Skip the last 3 sts of the first top and 3 sts on the second top, sc 15

You should now have a 6 st opening between the tops, use the yarn end from the first top to stitch it up

Sc around both tops - 30 sts

7 sc, dec, 13 sc, dec, 7 sc - 28 sts

6 sc, dec, 12 sc, dec, 6 sc - 26 sts

5 sc, 2 dec, 9 sc, 2 dec, 4 sc - 22 sts

4 sc, 2 dec, 7 sc, 2 dec, 3 sc - 18 sts

3 sc, 2 dec, 5 sc, 2 dec, 2 sc - 14 sts

2 sc, 2 dec, 3 sc, 2 dec, 1 sc - 10 sts

Sc around

Stuff the heart

5 dec - 5 sts

Dec, finish off - 4 sts

Weave in ends, it's done :)

Tutorial: Asymmetrical granny square

For this you need to know how to make a basic granny square. If you don't, a tutorial can be found here.

Start by making a granny square two rounds big (don't break the yarn if you want to use the same color for the last round, just secure the loop with a stitch holder)

Start the next round in a corner space the same way you would start a normal round

Crochet around two sides of the square, finish off after the last block

To begin the next round, attach the yarn in top of the 'ch 3' of previous round, chain 5 (or 4, depending on which version of the tutorial you're following)

Continue the round as normal

When you get to the end, chain 1 (or 2), dc in the last dc from previous round

Repeat the last two rounds as many times as you want :)

When the square is big enough, pick up the loop you left on the stitch holder and crochet around the entire square as normal.

Finish off :)