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!

Crochet Update: Meet Fritz the Fox!

I've had this pattern for a few weeks - I consider it a birthday present to myself :) - and I've been very excited to make it up, but I had to order the yarn for it so it had to wait for a while to get made up. I took a break from my giraffe this weekend to get this guy made and I just love it!

This is Fritz and he's a fox :) Isn't he cute?! He was made from the Fabian the Red Fox pattern by Adrialys. I fell in love with him immediately. His pointed cheeks are my favorite part and I just had to have one.

Look at his cute little face! I used Vanna's Choice yarn in Terra Cotta for the orange (to be honest it looked much more orangey-red online than it turned out to be in person, but it was close enough I guess so I went with it) along with Everyday Soft Worsted in black and snow white for the rest.

I tacked down the back legs so they don't move, but the front ones can flop around. This comes in very handy for making him wave at people, lol, and my nephew loved it. Also, yet again these feet are the perfect size to fit right in Lucas' mouth which always means it's a win with him.

And what fox would be complete without a tail? This one curves because that whole side is done with slip stitches. I like that it is constantly curved like that because he doesn't require a huge area to sit on. The slip stitches are never my favorite, but this time I made super sure to not pull them as tight as my other stitches and it went much easier.

Honestly, this guy was pretty complicated - much more so than I expected from how he looks. The ears in particular were pretty tricky and the assembly ended up taking me a few hours by itself. Even though it was a bit tricky, I'm really happy with my little guy. He's just so cute that it's worth the effort :)

WIP Wednesday!

It's that day again :) I'm still working on the same wip from last week, but I have definitely made progress :)

Now my Not So Itty-Bitty Giraffe looks less like a gord and more like a giraffe :) I've started the legs - you can see the half finished one laying down there. I was really doing well with it and I suddenly got a little bored. I just needed to switch it up a bit. So I set my giraffe aside and started on a project I had lined up.

It's a fox! Technically I finished him last night so he's no longer a work in progress, but I had a pick of his pieces so I figured I'd post it :)

That's it for my projects this week! If you want to see what some other bloggers have going on, head over to Tami's Amis' Blog and look around :)