Basically any kind of fiber or textile-based crafting practice requires a good storage system. You simply have a lot of material to keep track of, whether that is yarn, fabric, scraps, or something else. When you're working with found materials, it can be even more complicated - depending on how you source your material, you may end up with a lot of it all at once or with a stash size that dramatically fluctuates.
My solution is to use what I call "magic baskets" for a lot of my material storage. They are simply crocheted vessels made out of some of the material that I am trying to store. The "magic" is that they work up really quickly and they're super easy to pull apart, so I can change their size as the size of my stash changes (or when I want to use the material embedded in the basket for something else). This is a really simple example of a circular solution to a problem that otherwise would have required the use of additional resources.
It's also a demonstration of how easy it is to work circular principles into fiber work. My perspective has shifted over the past few years, and I now think about yarn used in knitting or crochet as temporary inhabitants, rather than an intrinsic part, of an object. The T-shirt yarn I used for the basket in this post was part of a rag rug I had in my room for several years and some was then used in an outdoor installation piece I did last summer - in addition to, obviously, having been T-shirts before. It is a really exciting property of the form that a piece of fabric can be strong/secure and yet so easy to disassemble.
Also, while I use these for storing my yarn stashes, you could definitely also use these baskets for non-craft-related storage.
Instructions
Most of this is just very simple crocheting - here is a summary of the basic stitches. I'm a very intuitive crocheter so I'm usually more focused on the general form than getting the stitches exactly right. Especially for something like a chunky T-shirt basket, precision really is not that important.
Step 1: Select your material. The baskets shown in this post are made of two things I have a lot of: chunky T-shirt yarn, and yarn that I made from tights and leggings. (I may do a post about clothing yarn at some point but that ground has been pretty thoroughly covered by others). I'm going to make one basket of each to store the like material. Start with parts of your stash that you are not likely to want to use first. You'll also need an appropriately sized crochet hook: mine is 10 mm.
Step 2: Create a slip knot and chain as many stitches as you need to achieve the desired width of your basket.
Step 3: Single crochet back and forth to make the base of the basket. Stop when you feel that it's the right size for what you are trying to store.
Step 4: Start working up the sides of the basket. The easiest way is to chain one stitch and then single crochet all the way around the rectangle. Repeat this for a couple of rows so you have a solid bottom section to the basket.
Step 5: After the first few rows, I usually change it up. This basket has one row of half double crochet (in black), followed by another row of single crochet. Make sure you always chain one stitch when you move up to a new row (or more for taller stitches). The top section (light blue and pink) was made the following way:
Chain 3
Skip once stitch in the row below and half double crochet into the next one
Chain 1
Repeat (2) & (3) until the end of the row
Keep working up your basket, in whatever stitches you prefer, until it's the right size for your stash.
Step 6: Just don't tie it off! Instead of the normal way to finish a crochet piece (pulling the yarn through the open loop and knotting it), I enlarge the loop to make sure it won't pull out accidentally and then I just toss any remaining yarn on the line into the basket with everything else. This way, if I obtain some more T-shirt yarn and want to make my basket bigger, I can just keep going. If I want the basket to be smaller or I want to use some of that blue yarn for something else, I just tug on the tail to pull the loop through and the top row of the basket will come apart easily.
Note 1: I did this when I changed colors as well - if there was yarn remaining but not enough to get around an additional row, I left the remainder of the tail for that color attached and in the basket.
Note 2: Even if you do knot off the end, you can still take your basket apart. It will just require a little more work to get through the knot. And you can definitely always add on with new material.
Note 3: The process of pulling out crochet stitches is extremely satisfying and I highly recommend it.
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