Repaired laundry basket

The handles broke on the laundry basket--all the handles--a long, long time ago. Duct tape had served--served it best--but that wasn't good enough. We didn't want to put such a huge hunk of plastic into the trash. There had to be a way.

So Paul cut the broken top of the basket off, and drilled three holes every place it was solid, as you see in the photo above.

Then I made some "tshirt yarn" according to Polka Dot Pineapple's excellent tutorial on how to make a ball of "yarn" out of worn out tshirts.

Then I started crocheting:
(I'm sitting on our bed, and the cover, by the way, was crocheted by my grandmother. Yes. I'm sitting on it. We use our things.)

After a row of single-crochet (the American term) around the top with a size J hook, I then started another sc round, making a chain where each handle used to be. Then, I did another row of sc over that. It took two tshirts:
The basket lost a little structural integrity (it squishes a bit easier), but it works really well. The handles are comfortable and stretchy, yet strong. And the loss of stiffness isn't really a problem--the new, crocheted top of the basket is very soft, so the basket with the laundry can be squished under one arm.

(All photos by Paul. Thank you, Paul!)