Trying Something New

If you have ever gone to a big quilt show- you have experienced the sometimes overwhelming feeling of SO many new projects and things to try.  One year at the quilt show in Grand Rapids Michigan I bought a pattern to make a fabric basket.  The baskets on display were beautiful and very sturdy.  I thought it would be fun to try- and maybe make a few for gifts.

The pattern is called Woven Spirals

I picked two of my Island Batik fabrics that went together nicely- much like the colors in the pattern photo.

The directions were good.  It took a very stiff interfacing that I hadn't used before, but it was easy to sew through.  You fused fabric to both sides of two pattern pieces, cut it out and added a zig zag stitch around the outside edge to finish off the edges.  You had to stitch around the outside edge two times with the zig zag stitch to make it very nice and solid.  It wasn't hard, but took a LONG time and ALOT of thread!

The end result was very nice.  It took 12 buttons to sew to the top.  It made a very nice and firm basket.  The hardest part was lining up the ends at the top evenly and stitching them down.  It took awhile and some hand sewing on my part to get it all secured.

This made a lovely basket and was an interesting technique to try.  I made it once- but didn't want to put the time and effort into making more for gifts.  This might be something you'd like to try.

The winner from my last blog post for the magazine with my pattern Popsicle pattern is OhioLori.  The magazine is on the way to her.  Congratulations Lori!