patchwork sewing basket tutorial

OK, so here is the promised tutorial I have been working on for long time. I started this project a while ago and finally I made some time to finish it and take pictures.

I will show step by step how to make a pretty patchwork lid for a basket. You can use it to put your sewing supplies inside, crochet, crafts or whatever you are working on. My Child uses one just like this as a pretend picnic basket.

I got inspired by one of those Japanese zakka style crafty websites that have very weird signs and fonts. I saw a basket similar to this one while surfing those sites and I liked it, so I decided to make one for myself and share the process with you. I hope you enjoy it.

First you will need...
a basket, any type but small. There are different types, with handles or without them . The one I chose has one handle and it works pretty good. I could not decided if I wanted the square one so I thought I will make that for later.

Materials and tools: sewing machine, scraps of fabric, light weight batting, leather cord (or ribbon or jute), trim like rick-rack or lace, one wooden button (plastic or metal if you like too), a piece of heavy cardboard (big enough to make the top of the basket), white poster board, glue gun and glue sticks, scissors, a card box cutter, one upholstery needle or big embroidery needle, pencil, pen and tool pliers.

First place the chosen basket up side down and trace the opening of it on the cardboard. Cut it and use the cardboard shape to trace onto the poster board like in the picture, cut it too.

Place the batting on a flat surface and cut a piece that is slightly larger than the cardboard top.

Now take your fabric scraps and trim and make a pretty patchwork piece. Iron it and place it under your cardboard top. Cut your patchwork around and about 1" (inch) larger than the cardboard piece. You are going to "glue gun upholster" :)

Place the patchwork piece under (wrong side up), the batting and then the cardboard. Glue the fabric around the edges pulling slightly towards the center of the cardboard so it gives it a nice stretch to the fabric (almost like upholstering). Don't worry if it looks messy, we are covering the center in a bit. Just make sure the exposed edge looks neat.

This is how your glue gun upholstered cardboard should look, cute uh?

Now cut a piece of fabric that is larger around the piece of poster board and follow the same process as with the cardboard but just don't use batting here. This is the piece that will conceal the back side of the cardboard top for the basket. Now both pieces are covered and neat looking.

Take both covered pieced and hot glue one with another with the wrong sides together. Now your basket lid is finished.

Here is how it looks. Next, determine where you want to open it from and hand sew a button close to the edge on the patchwork side of the lid.

Cut a piece of leather cord, ribbon or jute and slide the two ends through some of the open spaces of your basket. Just make sure the cord is long enough because this will be the loop to fasten the button. Place the lid on your basket and adjust the cord so it is easy to wrap around the button.

Take the lid off and knot the ends of the cord from the inside of the basket, cut off the ends if is too long.

Place the lid on top of the basket again and with a pencil mark two points, those marks are for the "hinges" of the lid. Use the upholstery or big embroidery needle to pierce a whole throught out the lid and use the same needle to pass a long piece of cord too, use the pliers to pull the needle if it gets difficult. Do the same with the second mark.


The first picture shows how the lid should look with the two long pieces of cord.
Next pass one end of each piece of leather cord through some spaces of the basket like the second picture shows.

Line up the edge of the lid and the edge of the basket and make knots the cord to secure the lid, don't pull the cord too tight, just enough to keep the lid lined with the basket and easy to open and close; cut off any excess.

Close the lid and this is the way the hinges should look.

NOW...

Your basket is done! Now you can put that WIP inside your pretty basket and take it anywhere! My daughter love it and thought that it will make a pretty pretend picnic basket for herself; that is actually a great idea for a little girl too!

I hope you all enjoy this project and show yours if you make one please :)