An idea has been percolating in the back of my mind for awhile, and this week I decided to finally try it.
Several years ago, I made this large, rectangular table topper out of a bunch of Christmas fabrics I had collected. It measures about 22 x 17. Very simple patchwork squares, quilted with a diagonal grid.
Here's a peek at the back - of course, I love these little penguins, and the peppermint binding!
I used it on my dining room table, and even have napkins that match it. But because I keep finding more fun Christmas fabric lines and sewing more things, the last couple of years I haven't used it as much.
So, my question to myself was, could I turn this into a fabric basket? I've seen lots of tutorials for fabric baskets recently, and I knew I basically needed a quilted panel with an outer fabric, batting, and a lining. I just needed to cut this into a size that I thought would work.
I cut a 5 1/4 x 17 inch piece off of each side of the table topper, leaving me with about a 12 x 17 piece that was still bound on each short end. I folded it in half, and stitched up each cut side. (The above picture shows the center piece after I sewed the side seams up.)
Although I didn't take a picture of the next step, it's the same thing you do to make a flat bottom in many basket or pouch tutorials. I cut a 2.5 inch square out of each corner of the flat-sewn piece, matched up the sides and the bottom, and sewed them back together.
And as simple as that, I had a little basket! It's 6 inches tall, and the bottom is about 6 x 6 inches square. A useful size! :)
And the inside -
Although I hadn't figured out at that point what to do with the raw edges left on the inside of the basket, I did stitch around the top edge (through the original binding) which holds those inside edges down. If I were to do this again, I could zigzag those raw edges as a first step before sewing the side seams of the basket.
I'm not sure yet what I will do with this basket, but it was definitely fun to see if I could make it!
