Christmas FO: Foxy Basket

My mom is another person on my list that I always deliberate a long time over what I will make her. Being that she's my mom, of course she "loves" everything I make her, lol, but this year she actually mentioned an item to me and I remembered. My mom was watching Knitting Daily TV one day at random and told me how they showed a really cute crocheted fox basket. I hunted down the episode and the pattern and made her one of her own :)

This is the Foxy Stash Basket which is a free pattern put up by Lily Sugar'n Cream yarn. The pattern calls for using their cotton yarn and holding it in double. Not only did I not have the fox appropriate colors of their yarn, but I didn't feel like holding things in double. I used the pattern as written, but I made it up in Vanna's Choice yarn from my stash in Terracotta and Beige with black scraps for the nose. The color worked section I did in tapestry crochet, and the rest was just done normal. I was pretty proud of my lack of ends to weave it - I stranded behind and then trapped the strand in the the next row of stitches.

You can see a little jog at the back with the colors, but not bad. It came out a cute little size too :) It's about 8 or 9 inches tall with the ears.

I used 15 mm shank eyes because I like how they look better. They stick out in the inside, but they won't be a problem. The ears are crocheted separately and then sewn on - they don't really like to stand up because of that, but you can mess with it to get them in a cute position.

I did a few on the fly changes to the pattern just based on my experience crocheting. First off, I added a back loop only row as the first row that didn't decrease - this creates a nice outer ridge along the bottom so the bag kind of knows how to sit so it makes it stand up nicer. I also changed the color work section a bit. The original pattern had quite the slant going on with the nose, so I tried to correct that a bit. I did to an extent and I'm happier with my finished basket than the example photo so that's good :) Other than that, I made it up just as the pattern suggested.

Happily, my mom loved her basket :) She thought it was super cute. My nephew also thinks it's pretty great - he likes to put all his toys inside it and carry it around. So that's always a good sign :)

So there's another successful Christmas gift :) Yay for cute storage items!