Fabric Basket!

Readers of my Siberian Huskies' blog saw a little fabric basket I made the other day.  I followed a wonderful tutorial over on Pink Penguin; Ayumi's directions and photos were great and I had a cute basket in no time at all!

As I was putting it together and doing a little quilting on the outside...

...I thought back to a question Trace asked about how I get my squiggly lines so even.  I just "eye ball" them, using the presser foot or some other visible mark (like a seam or a mark on my sewing machine) to keep the spacing about "right".  The lines themselves are not the same, nor do I want them the same (it gives more movement to have them in kind of random squiggles).  Check the back of what I was sewing on above:

See what I mean? The squiggles were placed at seam lines, but I didn't give a lot of thought or care to how the squigs were squiggling. Does that make sense to anyone out there? I may have lost myself on that one. Let's move on.

When I do want straight lines, I just go reeeeeeeeeeally slowly, using the presser foot and the edge of the fabric or the line of stitches as guides.

Some people use a double needle (twin needles that plug into your machine) but I have only used a double needle once (in my "How To Use Your Bernina" class) and I wasn't terribly comfortable with the process. I'm not sure exactly what the problem was, but I just don't have any double needles and can do the double top-stitching without it... so there you go.

Ayumi has you leave an opening in your lining, so you sew the two "sides" (outside of the basket and the lining) together completely, then turn it right side out through that opening.

 Don't text and sew. 

Oops. Yes, I sewed it together wrong and my lining was inside out... but that's OK; I was having fun texting with a friend - and that's why God gave us seam rippers.

The little basket came together in no time at all. My trusty Guide Dog for the Color Blind helped me choose the fabrics (I will NOT use green unless he comes to the Studio to help me!) and was pleased with our joint effort. He posed with the basket and I did a little special effects on the pic:



We're a good team!



I've since made a couple larger fabric baskets. I have a new shelf in my bathroom and am using the baskets for storage on it. I'll show you those in a day or two!

Thanks for reading!