I’ve been makin’ stuff, because it’s Spring break–and besides cleaning up vomit, I needed a diversion. (Yep, 5 of the 6 kids are down with the flu–and it’s been lasting 4 days for each of them–sigh.)

I purchased 3 huge skeins of natural cotton worsted weight yarn after Christmas (using a gift card :).) I was planning to make 4 baskets to hold piano music for the kids.  Inspired by these cuties from Ravelry:

I made up my own pattern to get something square and sized for the books and dug in, holding 3 strands together and using a huge size P hook. The thing was slow going and super floppy.  I set it aside, discouraged and still unorganized in the music department.

A few months later, I found these baskets at Target:

They were the perfect size, cost less than crochet, so much faster and already sturdy.

(Don’t mind the hole in the wall and the cans of paint at the end of the cabinet…I don’t even see them anymore.)

I bought the Target baskets–immediately, but I had the yarn leftover and a guilty conscience about what to do with it.  I had been eyeing these rugs on Etsy for awhile. And really the price isn’t too bad.  But since I had the stuff, I decided to attempt a DIY.  It was easy to unravel the partial basket and recoup the yarn.  It hurt my husband more than it did me who yelled, “What are you doing!?” as he watched me tear out hours of work.

He’s not a big fan of crochet.  It takes my time and he can think of a hundred things more fun to do together (wink.) The last thing he wanted to see was undoing the stuff he thought was a waste of time to begin with.  What was he going to think of this new project?  I’ll show you tomorrow.