A Square Basket

Ready for another basket? Try making a square basket with elongated hexagons …

The basket projects so far have used regular hexagons, and the geometry makes it work that three hexagons will add up to make a flat bottom that looks like a triangle (see footnote if you want the math).

But you can also use elongated hexagons to make baskets! Because they are “stretched” hexagons, you will need 4 hexagons instead of three to make a flat bottom.  Here is what it looks like, side by side:

To make a square basket, you work a very similar approach as shown for the Easy Tassel Basket.

Materials: We used the Elongon™ 2″ hexagon loom for worsted weight yarn and some Noro Silk Garden in beautiful ocean colors (Color 373). You will need 18 yards of worsted weight yarn to make one basket.

Weave 4 elongated hexagons and lay them out as pictured. Use the end tails to sew the sides together as shown:

Sew the last sides together as shown to shape the basket.

Turn the basket inside out, then treat the edging any way you like: Just fold or double-fold, add a button, add tassels … and a new method shown on this square basket is a rolled edging which looks a little bit like on pottery: Starting from the tip, roll the fabric down, then secure with 2-3 stitches at the center.

The finished basket measures about 4″ across and stands about 2″ tall. Use for small notions, jewelry, as a favor, decorate with sea shells for a summer accent, … or fill with CHOCOLATE!

By the way … Noro Silk Garden and Noro Kureyon (yarn favorites of mine for many reasons) provide good support to help the basket sides to stay up straight!

Footnote: The geometry of regular versus elongated hexagons …

• In a regular hexagon, each tip has an angle of 120 degrees. It takes three hexagons to add up to 360 degrees to make a full circle.
• The stretched tips of an elongated hexagon only make a 90 degree angle, so you need four hexagons to get to the 360 degree full circle.