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.