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I’m starting to work on busting my baby yarn stash. It’s been earmarked for charity projects, and it’s just a shame to have it sitting in a box, not doing anyone any good.

I like projects I can take with me places, mostly to work. The baby blankets I’ve been making have been difficult to bring along in my bag because I was always using two strands at a time, which meant carrying two large balls of yarn for each colour. As the blanket grows, it gets harder to take it places.

So, I went on a search to find a good, brainless pattern to use with this yarn, one-stranded, that wouldn’t be too boring.

Success!

Introducing the crocheted basket weave!

This stitch pattern is created by doing alternating groups of front post double crochet (fpdc) and back post double crochet (fpdc).

To do these stitches, you work a dc as you normally would, but instead of inserting your hook through the top of the previous row stitch, you work the stitch around the post of the stitch below. For fpdc you insert the hook from front to back on the right side of the post, and poke it out on the left side of the stitch and grab the yarn there. For bpdc, you insert from back to front on the right side of the post, then back out on the left side. I’ll do a picture tutorial of it some day. ^_^

I like the texture this pattern gives:

I started with a chainless foundation of dc stitches. A multiple of 3 plus 2. The first and last stitches of each row after that are just regular dc stitches. The stitches in between go *3 fpdc, 3 bpdc* repeat as needed. Now, when you turn at the end of your row, the fpdc stitches will now look like bpdc, and vice versa. Work the stitch opposite to what it looks like you did before.

I think what I like most about this stitch pattern is that it’s the same on both sides:

The blanket is about 6″ long right now, so I still have a ways to go, but it should fit in my work bag quite nicely until it’s nearly finished. And that’s fantastic. ^_^