༺ Violet Project: Fitting the Tumbler ༻

This is the second installment of my series about creating a crocheted violet basket arrangement for my etsy shop. In the first post on this topic, I gave examples of past projects and started initial planning. In this post I'm ready to show how I fit a crocheted basket cover over the white tumbler.

I chose a pretty multi-colored acrylic yarn for the body of the basket, and selected a #3.00 crochet hook. The cover is made from the bottom up. The beginning of the basket is a simple chain of about 4 stitches, joined into a ring.I made about 8 single crochet stitches (sc) into this ring.

Next I started to form corners by making another round of sc stitches but adding three sc into one stitch, placing four of these around the ring to create 4 corners. I don't have a written pattern for this basket, instead I watch each row as the basket grows and make size changes as needed. After a few more rounds of sc with corners, I reduce the corners to two sc, then finally no corners at all. This starts the basket moving up the sides of the cup, and I begin slowly increasing stitches as I go.

The basket continues up the tumbler and when it gets to within one row of the top, I join the trim color and do the last round in the butter color. After that round, I switch to half double crochet stitches (hdc), and also do the next two rounds in only the back loops from the previous rounds. This causes the yarn to wrap inside the tumbler to form the top. The next picture shows the way the yarn bends backwards into the cup.

Finally, the last round is double crochet, with a decrease every 6 stitches. This causes even more tightening to hold the cover snug in place. I cut the yarn after this row and sew in the ends.

For the decorative basket trim, I use a new piece of cream yarn. It gets joined in the front loop of the hdc row around the top, at the back of the basket. I create an anchor row for the basket trim by single crocheting loosely around for one row. You can get more creative here, but this is how I made the trim shown in the picture. I do a round of hdc, then turn the work, and do a round of double crochet. Finally I do a finishing trim round of (sc, slip stitch) in each stitch.

With the basket part of the project complete, I add some paper basket fill and start gathering materials for the crocheted flowers and other accents I'll put into this arrangement.