Basket prototypes and presents

I went a little bit crazy sewing baskets over the last couple of weeks.  In my defense, I was trying to perfect my Boxy Fabric Basket and needed to try out a couple of different ideas.  Then I saw a tutorial for a hilarious woven basket that I decided I needed to try, because apparently I have a basket problem.

So what did I do with all of those baskets?

First, I gave one of my practice baskets (one that isn't in the above photo) to Charlotte's sweet friend, Lila, who turned 7 a couple of weeks ago.  As I have been doing for all of the birthday parties Charlotte has been invited to over the last month, I also sewed Lila a Shredded Heart T-Shirt.  Turquoise is Lila's favorite color, so I paired a turquoise tee with some shiny purple fabric underneath.

Lila is getting a sewing machine from her mom for her birthday (apparently it has yet to be purchased though), so I filled the basket with some scraps that I thought would interest her.  Most of them are quilting cotton, but I threw some fleece in there just for fun.  What better was to practice with a new machine than on some neat fabric scraps?  I had so much fun going through all of my fabric, and it helped me clean out my stash of material that was too small to do much with, but too big to throw away (in my opinion, anyway!).

This green basket was the original prototype for the Boxy Fabric Basket.  It was the first one I made using the pentagonal pattern pieces.  After I made this one, I decided I wanted side handles instead and started dreaming of a way to use piping.  This fabric was from a bag that a table cloth and cloth napkins came in that my mom had bought a few years ago.  She didn't want to keep the bag as storage, so she gave it to me to make something out of.  I paired it with some black cotton and decided it would be a cute basket to store her cloth napkins in.  Mom agreed, so I'm going to send it to her next time I get off my lazy butt and make it to the post office.  (I have SUCH a talent for making perfectly even things look completely lopsided in photos, so just trust me that the basket is not nearly as wonky as it looks in this photo.)

This next basket has been claimed by Charlotte to hold her "sewing kit" (scraps of fabric that she has fallen in love with, my extra seam allowance ruler, some dull scissors, and my old tomato pincushion filled with bent pins).  It's a little bigger than the final version of the Boxy Fabric Basket, and the handles are sewn on a bit differently.  I'm not sure why the peach fabric looks so orange-y in this photo.

This final Boxy Fabric Basket will be given to one of my children's teachers for Valentine's Day.  I have no idea why this fabric photographs so blue when it's really quite green.  I'm sure it has something to do with my crappy photography skills.  The inside fabric is from a cute chevron fat quarter I bought on a whim once.  I wanted to use red cotton webbing for the handles, but the only red the store had was way more orange than the piping that I had already sewn in.  Whoops.  The white handles look okay though.

This Weaved Fabric Basket (shouldn't it be "woven"?) was very tedious to make, but it was a fun challenge.  Once I got about halfway through the project I went rogue and finished it off my own way.  I also decided I wanted to add handles, so I grabbed some leftover cotton webbing and went to town.

I used four different pink fat quarters and paired them with some teal cotton (which looks blue in these photos for some reason).  There is Peltex inside the pink strips to give the basket some structure, but I think if I made this again I would also add Peltex to the teal strips as well.  I'm assuming the directions meant that I should use Peltex, but it just specified "interfacing".  It looks like Peltex in the photos though.  I reeeeeeeeally wish tutorials would specify better what weights of interfacing are required.

And finally, I made another Quilted Wine Tote for Corey to give to his new co-worker, Logan, when he visited him in Louisiana last week.  Corey also wanted to give Logan a pleather keychain like the ones I made for Corey's Lincoln keys.  I was happy for another opportunity to use my new walking foot, so I jumped at the chance.  The foot worked like a charm for the tote, but I didn't think it handled the pleather as well as I had heard it would.  I switched back to my old technique of covering the underside of the presser foot with masking tape and that did the trick.