Fabric Baskets

I've been admiring everyone else in blogland's fabric baskets for AGES, I knew I wanted to give it a go. As with most things, I was obsessed with them for a short time and made nothing else but fabric baskets!

The craze is over. I wasn't sure what I was going to use them all for, but they've all found homes around the house and I do love them. I made a mixture of circle and rectangle ones, I think the circles are more successful, they hold their shape, see what you think of my efforts:

First attempts - now in use for Claudia's small socks and tights, the fabric is from the Snippets line by American Jane for Moda, lined with Bliss, also by Moda:

Second go, main fabric is Echino, lining is from an op shop, I use this as a mini-bin on my sewing table for cotton and thread scraps:

Third, moved on to the rectangles now, using this tutorial, fabric is Denyse Schmidt, Hope Valley, Thistle Leaf, lining is a linen cotton blend, this one now houses Claudia's small toys that I keep next to her highchair for mealtime distraction purposes (is that bad parenting?):

And last but not least! 2 more rectangles, these have been put to use in our walk in robe, one is full of tags cut from clothes that I can't bring myself to throw away (who knows when you might need those spare buttons?) and the other has aftershave and perfume in it, all very very tidy. Can't remember what the main fabric is....something japanese I think, it's decor weight, the lining is Ta Dot by Michael Miller.

So, that's that craze over! On to the next one. What I learnt was, the rectangles need pretty stiff interfacing (I used a layer of the stiffest iron on interfacing I could find, and a layer of quilt wadding) to keep their shape, plus careful ironing. For the circles I used a layer of iron on fluffy stuff (I think the technical term is 'pellon').

I'm just hand stitching the binding on a quilt so should be able to post that soon, I'm trying to up my average of one post a month....