Crocheted Baskets

There are a lot of people out there making crocheted baskets..all shapes and sizes for all kinds of uses.  I've seen little ones for bathrooms, giant ones for toys and laundry and crafting supplies and so finally I decided I would try making one.  One of the drawbacks to my starting was that the cording isn't so cheap..you use a pretty good sized one and quite a few feet, but one day a lightening bolt hit and I remembered that I have a box of macramé cord bundles (unopened even) in my storage room from the olden days when I used to actually use macramé cord for plant hangers and rewebbing lawn chairs etc, and tried it out.  It works great, so somewhere down the line I am going to make more of these in jumbo sizes and little sizes.  They are kind of hard on your hands to crochet, especially your thumbs because you are handling the cording and double strands of yarn (I used two strands of Peaches and Cream brand cotton for mine), but pretty easy to do once you get going and figuring out how to keep everything tight enough to stand up nice.  The pattern is from "Little Bee" and is called rainbow ropey basket if you want to try making one/some.  she has a tutorial on there also that helps.  I wanted this to be "stripey" so I bought a variegated cotton, but forgot that I had to use two strands, so that messed up the stripes.  Next time I will use a thicker yarn and correct that mistake and use one strand instead.  anyway, here's my FIRST TEST basket..