Crochet Basket for Fruits, Crochet Basket for Munj Rukhawat 1, Bhikshawal Basket

 

Hello friends,

In India Upanayan, Munj is one of the very important ritual. Details of that can be seen in,

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Upanayana

When a boy goes to live at his Guru's tent for studying, the elder women in house offer some tasty food for the journey to Guru's home. It is called "Bhikshawal". The idea behind is that, at Guru's home he has to go to five houses and ask for some BHIKSHA, Bhiksha means food necessary to live. To ask for Bhiksha means to sacrifice your EGO. So the boy first ask bhiksha to his mother and then some more home. Mother gives some food (most of the time grains) and pours it to his bag (called Jholi).

In Munj ceremony ladies decorate five baskets to give grain to Batu (the boy whose Munj is happening). For this reason when we decided to have Munj of my grandson Krish, I made 4 crochet basket for Bhikashawal. After Munj baskets can be used for fruits etc.

For two baskets I used plastic basket from inside to remain stiff and one I made without bag. Particularly for this one I used pink basket.

It's top diameter is 8" and base diameter is 5.2".

Yarn: Vardhaman Millenium, hook 3.5 mm

I know that the size of the basket you purchase may be varying but I have explained it so that you can customise your own size. Thread the beads approximately 85-90 in the yarn.

PATTERN: R1: dc12 in magic loop, cl (12) [First dc is always ch3]

R2: dc 2 in each st, cl (24)

R3: [dc1 in 1 st, (dc2) in next] 12 times, cl (36)

R4: [dc1 in 2 sts, (dc2) in next] 12 times, cl (48)

Now work on like this increasing 12 sts in each round. Place it at bottom and see how much rounds should be worked more.

I have to work 6 rounds as,

R5: [dc1 in 3 sts, (dc2) in next] 12 times, cl (60)

R6: [dc1 in 4 sts, (dc2) in next] 12 times, cl (72)

In the next round we work with beads.

R7: ch1, sc1 in 2 sts, [move one bead, skip 1 sts, sc1 in 2 sts] rep 24 times, cl.

R8: Make V at each stitch behind bead, V means (dc1, ch1, dc1), cl (24 Vs)

R9: [(dc2, ch2, dc2) shell in ch1-sp of one V, dc1 in ch1-sp of next V] 12 times, cl. (12 shells, 12 dcs)

R10: Sl st till ch2-sp of shell. [shell on shell, fpdc on dc] 12 times, cl.

R11: Sl st till ch2-sp of shell. [shell (dc3, ch2, dc3) in ch2-sp of shell, fpdc on fpdc] 12 times, cl.

R12: same as R11

R13: Sl st till ch2-sp of shell. [shell (dc4, ch2, dc4) in ch2-sp of shell, fpdc on fpdc] 12 times, cl.

Now it is almost covered so in the next round we try to level all stitches.

R14: in ch2-sp, sc1, [ch4, dc on fpdc-st, ch4, sc1 in ch2-sp of shell] rep till end, cl.

R15: [dc1 on sc-st, dc4 in ch4-sp, dc1 on dc-st, dc4 in ch4-sp] rep till end, cl (120 sts)

R16: ch1, sc1, [move one bead, ch1, skip 1 st, sc1 in next st] 60 times, cl

Now instead of working crochet and joining the basket, we prefer to sew by tapestry needle since the number of sts are 120 and holes are 57. Hence we made next round.

R17: dc1 in each st, cl (120) and then sew by tapestry needle.

Lastly sew by tapestry needle as shown in video below, inserting needle in the hole and passing through alternate stitch.

Wow!! the beautiful basket is ready.

The following video with English subtitles may help you.

ETC: Enjoy the Creativity.

NOTE: When I made this basket I am not aware of the fact that REVIVE liquid can even make acrylic things stiff. I tried it later. So if you can make it stiff by REVIVE then no need of using plastic basket so that you will be free bird to make basket in any size.