With my table-leg coasters done, I turned all of my “better living through crochet” efforts to making sturdy baskets that would fit well in my Ikea cubbies and make organizing effortless and fun, and it ended up being a little like trying to please Goldilocks.

After experimenting with various numbers of strands of yarn and sizes of hook, I eventually settled on two strands of worsted weight yarn and a 6.5 mm hook.

Having measured the width of the cubby, I got to work, and in seemingly no time, I had this awesome square base:

I grabbed the base, bolted up the stairs, and checked to see how it would fit in the actual cubby.

Let me start by saying, the width was perfect.

But it turned out that in my haste to get started, I had somehow decided that cubby = cube, when in fact, the Ikea cubby was a bit deeper than it was wide, and my basket-to-be needed to be ever-so-slightly rectangular to best accommodate the actual size of the cubby. It was, in the language of Goldilocks “too small.”

So I got busy and tried making a second version, the proportions of which were also not quite right:

If I made the base long enough to accommodate the cubby, then it would not be as wide as was needed for a good fit, and if I made it as wide as would be best, it would be too long.

Hoping I had learned whatever lessons were needed to get a rectangle of just the right size, I got out some Red Heart Super Saver hot red (hoping that hot red was my lucky color) and tried a third time, and this time, it would seem, I got it just right:

I still need to finish crocheting the sides, and while I am sure that it will not be as straightforward in life as it is in my imagination, once it is done, I will be ready to do it all over again until each cubby has a basket.