Interior decorating! Otherwise known as what I do with my time rather than use it to clear off the horizontal surfaces in my house. Crochet a trio of baskets to hold the stuff covering the surfaces!
Do you have any random yarn in your stash? Maybe left over from a commission that was perfectly suited to the project at hand, but otherwise really not your style? It seems to me that I always end up with extra yarn, and it’s never something I would use for a personal project. Honestly, I got a little annoyed with having to look at it every time I went on a stash dive, seeing all these spare skeins that I wouldn’t choose for myself taking up space in my yarn storage. Finally, I decided I was going to do something about it, pulled all the problem skeins and balls out of my stash, and set to work.
Not much of a pattern, and I didn’t put much thought into color-mixing, but simply grabbed multiple strands of different weight and fiber contents, and grabbed a smaller hook than I would normally use to make a denser fabric that stood up by itself. I single-crocheted a flat disk to start, by starting by chaining a few stitches (three or four should do it, although I suppose you could use a magic ring), then joining into a circle, chaining one stitch, then crocheted eight (or ten, whatever suits your fancy) single crochet stitches into the ring, and slip-stitching the last stitch into the first. Then I made a flat disk by first doubling each stitch, and on the next row doubling every other stitch. So, for instance, the first row you could work two single crochets into each stitch to double your stitch count, and on the next row work double the first stitch, next stitch just one single crochet, then double the next. Each subsequent row has one more stitch between the increases until you get a disk as wide as you want your basket base to be, radiating out like wedges, then work a row plain. To get the shlumpy (technical term) sort of ridge I did a few rows of slip stitches which makes a much tighter fabric, then switched back to single crochet until the basket was as tall as I wanted. Very technical and precise pattern, that. The smallest basket has a scalloped edge just for the hell of it.
Even better, they nest! That doesn’t much matter, and I didn’t plan on it but it makes for a cute photo. The largest basket is about ten inches tall. Now I wait for Better Homes and Gardens to call.