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Wednesday, April 16, 2014

A Special Train-Themed Easter Basket for My Son

Handmade crochet Easter egg basket with trains for boys

Having grown up in a half-non-Christian home with parents who immigrated to America, I don't really have any Easter traditions. Buying a special spring outfit, receiving baskets filled with goodies, and having a huge family dinner with honey baked ham are all pretty foreign to me. That being said, I somehow found myself crocheting a special little basket for Dexter because my church's moms group was having an impromptu Easter egg hunt this week and I was too lazy to go to the dollar store. I really liked the Jam made Easter basket, but the rainbow colors and decorative bows just didn't seem like Dexter's personality at all. Alrighty, a classic brown basket it is, for my wonderfully independent, sharply observant, and cheerfully talkative boy.

Simple brown crochet Easter egg basket
This is what the basket started off looking like – plain and simple.
That being said, I couldn't resist adding some embellishments... that got more and more out of hand over time. Dexter is currently in a car/train/mechanical transportation vessel phase and can be easily entertained with a 28-minute YouTube video featuring only steam trains. Therefore, I just had to put a certain vehicle on his basket and make it somewhat Easter-related. All aboard the Easter egg train! (It's like the Polar Express but for warmer weather.)

Handmade train-themed crochet Easter basket for boys
Despite all appearances, Dexter didn't actually enjoy picking up eggs. He thought I was making him clean up a mess that someone else had made...
Yay for finishing another delightfully short project (while continuing to avoid the Imogen cowl and 4 Christmas stockings in my queue)! It always pleases me when I can find something interesting to make Dexter that he won't immediately grow out of within a few months. May you all have a blessed Easter!

4 comments:

Unknown said...

Ha! You know you're a crafter when making something from scratch feels like less hassle than going to the store! Awesome. (I did the same thing with gym bags this year--it was easier to dive into my fabric stash and whip up some little drawstring pouches than it was to go to Walmart) Very nice basket and I'll bet he will use that until he's too old for Easter Egg hunts.

Happy Easter to you.

A Gamer's Wife said...

@Jennifer - You are so sweet! I wish I had the patience and time to start working on my sewing skills. It's so much faster than yarn crafts. I really, really should though... maybe I'll be motivated if I set myself to make something for the new baby's room?

Unknown said...

Curtians. Curtains are easy--nothing but straight lines to sew. (unless you are me and decide your boy needs plaid curtains then you drive yourself crazy making sure the stripes match up from side to side--45 minutes of measuring, 10 minutes of sewing.)

The gym bag was easy too-a very simple pouch with a shoelace drawstring.

PJ pants are a good first project for learning to read patterns. I like to make PJ pants from vintage sheets I find at the second hand store. You can get really funky colours and patterns and they are perfectly soft and comfy--and cheap!

My most recent sewing project was a tent for our new pet rats--that was a bit more challenging, but it is so cute to see their little faces poking out of the opening in their cage.

A Gamer's Wife said...

That little rat tent sounds cuuuute!