I’ve been slowly working away at my recycled yarn cat mats (which I first blogged about here), and decided to line the cats’ favorite basket. I started with a magic circle and used single crochet stitches. It starts as with any flat round crochet work, with increases spaced by single stitches that gradually increase in number, but as it climbed the walls of the round basket I found that I was still adding increases but not increasing the singles. That sounds more complicated than it was, huh. Here are some cat pictures.

I didn’t write things down as I went, I was crocheting by feel, but here is the approximate pattern, for those inquiring minds that want to know.

• Single crochet (sc) 8 into Magic Loop
• Increase (inc) in each stitch (st)
• *Sc in st, inc in st* repeat (rp) 8 times (x)
• *Sc in next 2 st, inc in st* rp 8x
• *Sc in next 3 st, inc in st* rp 8x
• *Sc in next 4 st, inc in st* rp 8x
• *Sc in next 5 st, inc in st* rp 8x
• *Sc in next 6 st, inc in st* rp 8x
• *Sc in next 7 st, inc in st* rp 8x
• *Sc in next 8 st, inc in st* rp 8x
• Repeat last row to match the slope of the basket sides
• Sc around for two or three rounds
• Finish with a row of crab stitch (single crochet going right instead of left) to add structure to the edge.
• Note: Increase means to make two sc in the same st.