Not Crocheted, But....

🐇Easter Basket Stuffy🐇

Up-cycling single purpose Easter baskets.  The idea came to me when shopping for the Easter Bunny, and these adorable Easter baskets were staring me in the face with the cute "take me home" eyes, but I despise waste.  Why make something that has one purpose to be thrown away, and they were $10 each, to boot.  You are literally throwing away your money, and they way they are made, the plastic breaks down with use, so allowing the kids to keep them, while a decent idea, it just doesn't last through what kids will put them through.  Then I thought, why not make them stuffed animals?  I didn't have any pattern to make it work, but had the thought to use the material from the basket handle to add an extra panel so it doesn't warp.
If you have similar baskets that you just don't have the heart to discard, this is my step-by-step how to

Items you'll need:
scissors
sewing thread
needles
seam ripper (or embroidery snips like mine)
basic sewing pins
basket (duh)

To start, you'll need to rip the seam for the basket.  The plastic needs to come out.  There were plastic panels in the bottom of both of mine.  You can keep it in, but it will affect the huggability of your stuffy, and it could potentially create a warp in the overall shape if you don't have enough handle panel.  I took mine out.  

If your has ears, the seam thread connects them and will fall off, as will your handles.  To counteract this, I sewed the ears on as the original seam was pulled out to avoid any need to remeasure.  I'd rather not end up with crooked ears.  The seam for the bottom of the basket may connect to the bottom of your stuffy, and there are two ways to remove it, if you choose to do so.  You can cut the seam around the bottom and resew the stitches, or you can cut the inside material and pull it out, which is what I did. If you go from the inside, there is no need to sew it back together. What you'll get will look something like this:

  Now that you have your pieces, you will need to find the seam of your handle (pull the plastic out) and you'll have a flat fuzzy strip of material.  This will be your back panel.  If you'll notice, the two baskets are different shapes.  The unicorn is circular, the dinosaur was oval.  The shape and measurement is very important.  Since the dinosaur was oval, I only had to pin the handle strip to the back, stuffed it, and sewed together.  With this unicorn, I had to cut the handle in half, sew it long ways together to create a square back panel, then pinned it together, stuffed, and sewed. 

Crochet Hooks

Since kindling my joy of crochet, I have decided to look into the many different types of crochet hooks. Comfort, or the lack there of, is the entire reason I had stopped before. It came to the point where I would think about getting back to work, but the unimaginable pain that followed quickly had me running the other direction or finding other hobbies to occupy my time.  So, off to the Internet I go. What a load of information! Video after video after article after self-promoting blogs and websites. What can really be trusted?  Are they being paid to promote these companies? Is it really worth buying? Do they last?  Well, I don't know if any of them last, I'm just as new to this as you are (or more so, depending on when you click here).  

RESEARCH!

Both of these hooks are 5mm, yet the hook on the bottom in the left picture looks smaller.  Why? The one on top in both pictures is an inline, the one on the bottom is tapered.  Susan Bates is known for the inline variety, the width is uniform throughout.  The side picture (right) shows the hook does not flare outward past the thickness of the hook stem. The hook is sharper, which tends to cause the yarn to split.  Boye is considered a tapered hook, and the width decreases between the stem and the hook.  Using inline can cause an inconsistent tension. I suggest trying both out to see which one feels more comfortable.  Since my tension is consistent, and splitting is not a horrible issue for me, I like them both, though I tend to reach for the tapered before inline. Why?  It's just what I started with, so I have three or four sets of them.  (I will neither confirm nor deny having a hoarding problem.)

Next is to decide grip.  As you can see from the picture above, there is a wide variety of types to choose from.  Since I have arthritis in both hands, along with a spur, this part is very important to me.  The basic aluminum sets are out of the question, because they are too thin to keep a comfortable grip.  The wooden hooks are lighter, and longer, but still too thin for my hands, so I bought several ergonomic styles.  Susan Bates black grip, the rubber ergonomics, and Furls. (The longest crochet hook called a Tunisian Crochet hook, and has no mention elsewhere in this post.)

The type boils down to preference, so I needed to buy one to give it a whirl.  By far, I do very much like the Furls, though they are exceedingly expensive.  This particular hook costs $25 from Amazon, though it is cheaper to buy directly from the Furls website, I was able to save money going through Amazon after taxes and shipping a single hook.  Buying more than one, it would be cheaper to buy from Furls.  Free shipping, just FYI.  I will buy more, as they are the most comfortable of any hook I have ever held, but I will not buy another made of resin.  Yes, it's pretty, but I need something durable.  I have seen these break just by being dropped on the floor.  Metal for me please.

The set I settled on does not have a brand.  I bought them from Amazon (click here for direct link), The reviews are hit and miss, but the set I got was decent enough.  The price isn't much more than the basic aluminum, and I feel it was worth it.  After looking at several different sets, the deciding factor was the fact it has a whole hook, throughout the handle, making it solid and less likely to come apart.  The size stamp can rub off, but it has an engraved size on the opposite side of the grip, and there is no fear of having unmarked hooks.  Bonus is the carrying case.

Push comes to shove, buy a few different hooks to determine what sets you want to invest fully in, not that it stopped me from having my own tiny collection.