![baskets of goodies](https://photos.smugmug.com/photos/i-4vjPSpb/0/a5933411/M/i-4vjPSpb-M.jpg)
I vowed last month to participate in the Devoted Quilter's 100-day WIP challenge. I've been participating in a Ravelry quilt WIP challenge for years, and sometimes I've even successfully completed quilts on my list. Many summers, however, have passed without fnishing a single thing.
![WIPs-B-Gone 2021](https://photos.smugmug.com/photos/i-S6Q6R55/0/acec6706/M/i-S6Q6R55-M.jpg)
I also participated for several years in Ravelry's Starfleet Academy, which also had regular WIP challenges. I was much more successful in meeting those goals, possibly because the crafts I was trying to finish were smaller than quilts, and I typically had to finish just one each month. The real challenge was tying my finishes into the monthly outer space themes...
I still have stacks of projects hidden in every nook and cranny, crying out to be finished. I'm excited to start searching for them and to hopefully start whacking a few of them into the light of day and more appropriate lifestyles. Finished lifestyles. Giftable lifestyles. Useful lifestyles. Anything but hiding in a brown paper bag beneath the bed or in the corner of a closet!!!
I didn't have to hunt far and wide for one of my first finishes. This flimsy basket has been in my crochet project bag for at least three years. I'd set a goal back when I whipped up this "Flower Girl Basket", literally in about two train commutes, to use up some of my hand-dyed thread so I could justify dyeing more. It's funny to remember now that back then, I wanted to make similar baskets from each of the six colors of the rainbow. I'm not sure I've touched my hand-dyed thread since I finished the handle of this basket.
![Flower Girl Basket WIP](https://photos.smugmug.com/photos/i-sJJWf9h/0/c8c288d8/M/i-sJJWf9h-M.jpg)
I also didn't have to look far to find the single-serving cereal cup I'd used to shape my previous baskets. It was in the basement, in a box of unfinished snowflakes I've wanted to bring upstairs for several years now. Gosh, since perhaps 2013!!! That's when I wrote the basket pattern!!!
The Honey Nut Cheerios container had a surprise for me, though. I did not remember that I had another unfinished another basket from the same pattern. This one is not my hand-dyed thread. It's Lizbeth, which I collected quite a stash of back before I became addicted to thread-dyeing.
![Uh, oh, another WIP!!!](https://photos.smugmug.com/photos/i-7CBmH2L/0/f6cacadc/M/i-7CBmH2L-M.jpg)
If I finished the basket handle to go with the unexpected WIP, I didn't put it in the same box. I had to make another one. I searched my old Lizbeth stash to see if I even had any more of that pink and purple thread.
Turning to the stash was not a pleasant task. I've long avoided organizing my Lizbeth thread. Lizard has accidentally knocked down a ball or two from time to time, as have I, and the unraveled messes often got tossed back onto the pile. The stash literally was a tangled mess. A tangled mess I wasn't using anymore, so why bother, right???
![sad sight](https://photos.smugmug.com/photos/i-35qmMQX/0/5f1af396/M/i-35qmMQX-M.jpg)
I'm probably going to have to dive into that stash to finish more of the WIPs lurking in that crochet box from the basement. So I might as well clean it up before I get started.
![progress](https://photos.smugmug.com/photos/i-GCxCcJ2/0/6f8ac52b/M/i-GCxCcJ2-M.jpg)
The variegated threads look so much better now! I didn't organize the solid colors yet. I'll try to do that in conjuction with my next crochet WIP. Maybe. Thankfully, I did have a tiny bit of the Girly Girl thread left, so I set right to work making a handle for the Girly Girl basket.
![a whole new handle](https://photos.smugmug.com/photos/i-zc4ZFzJ/0/f1aa6d76/M/i-zc4ZFzJ-M.jpg)
Both handles had to be stiffened, and then I got side-tracked by work and by a Boss Day project I needed to finish in time to mail. Oh, and a couple of baby quilts... But that's another WIP story.
![dry, baby, dry](https://photos.smugmug.com/photos/i-tcGr4BS/0/9f76dcef/M/i-tcGr4BS-M.jpg)
The blue basket had to be stiffened, too. I apparently crocheted tighter three years ago than I did back in 2013. The blue basket wouldn't fit over the Cheerios container. I ended up using a regular plastic drinking cup, which was square on the bottom. Before I set the school glue-covered basket aside to dry, I twisted it around on the cup, and that evented out the corners the cup formed. Now dry (and finished), the blue basket gives no clue it was dryed on a square-bottom form.
Finally, I got to sit down and finish my baskets. I wove a ribbon through each handle, then stitched the handle ends in place. I don't know yet what I will do with the baskets. But they are done, and that feels so blasted awesome!!!
![Finished!](https://photos.smugmug.com/photos/i-ch5BNXp/0/54117337/M/i-ch5BNXp-M.jpg)
Lovely!
ReplyDeleteBeautiful finished products, and lovely stash eye candy. I do admire those like yourself who can just whip up a wee pattern or two off the top your heads...Does this come to naturally, or do have to think on it? Neither works for me...although I have created a few things. Writing the pattern seems to put the kybosh on the design process. It doesn't come easy for me at all.
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