Fabric baskets - my new addiction

I have decided that this year I'm going to get more organised and tidy. I live in a tiny place, and I've managed to accumulate a lot of crafting supplies, so it's pretty much a nightmare. My yarn stash was getting especially out of control lately, and since it's the middle of my exam period and thus the time when I procrastinate a lot and do a hundred things as an excuse to not study, I had the perfect opportunity to sew a basket for it.



I dug up some Ikea fabric I got years ago, and re-purposed a pillowcase, and whipped this up the night before my second-to-last exam. It was a really quick project, even for me, and I'm not the fastest or most adept with a sewing machine. It took about an hour from start to finish.

I fell completely in love with it. I always love it when I get amazing results with not insane amounts of effort, but this basket is so useful on top of that.



Here it is on the shelf that previously had a ton of yarn messily piled on it. The different yarns are less visible now, but it's much easier to root through the basket, whereas previously all the skeins came tumbling down when I tried to grab something from the very back :|

I was so in love that I decided to make a smaller basket to keep all the unfinished projects that are normally strewn on my desk.



Made with more Ikea fabric. I used light fusible interfacing for this one, so it holds its shape a lot better. It was also my first time working with interfacing (as I said, I'm not much of a sewist) and I am blown away by it XD I wish I had made the little tag-handles a little shorter, but otherwise, I'm very pleased by it.

I was still addicted, so I made another one yesterday:



I did a pattern that's more like a box for this one, as opposed to the previous bucket-like ones, and I used a piece of cork sheet inserted between the lining and the outside fabric to make the bottom sturdier. I wish I had used interfacing with this one too so it wasn't as floppy, but I don't mind it that much. I didn't actually had a specific purpose for it when I made it, so it's accommodating my pitiful collection of fabrics for now.





I mostly did my own thing with them, but I was very inspired by this amazing tutorial, as well as this one and this one.

Waffle stitch gloves

It's been so cold here the past couple of weeks that, even around the house, I've been wishing for a warmer pair of gloves. That's when I found this pattern and decided to have a go at it.







As you can probably see, I fiddled with the original pattern a lot. I made mine quite a bit smaller than the pattern suggested, because I have tiny hands, I changed up the stitch in the cuff and edge, and I added a thumb gusset by increasing two stitches every three rows or so.



In progress shot. As you can see, I knitted them flat and then sewed them up the side. I made them with worsted weight merino yarn, the scraps I had left from the entrelac scarf I knitted - I literally had two inches of yarn left when I was done, I was seriously worried that there wouldn't be enough to finish the second glove.

Entrelac scarf, finally finished

(It was actually finished a couple weeks ago, but it's exam time, so I just got around to updating.)







I didn't really block the scarf - just steam-blocked a little bit, because I really love the texture of unblocked entrelac *__*



I love how it turned out. The friend it was for liked it too :D And, even though it got really tiring towards the end, I really did love knitting entrelac. Usually my problem when knitting or crocheting is that I get bored. Which is why I have so many WIPs -__- It's exciting at first, but then I have to do the same thing row after row, and I lose interest (it doesn't help that my attention span is that of an overexcited three-year-old or something). But entrelac is involved enough that kept my interest the whole time. Not to mention that it gave me an excuse to practice my backwards knitting ;) Now I want to make entrelac hats and entrelac gloves and more entrelac scarves *__*



All the yarn I snipped off after I waved in all the loose ends - quite a pile :P