project: fabric berry basket

A few years ago I saw this amazing tutorial from Sarah Hearts. She made a little basket out of a paper plate and washi tape, and I love that with something so simple you can construct something so functional and perfect for gifting little food items. Although you could use it for many things, she showed it with berries, and I think of it as a berry basket, much like those you would get fresh berries in.

The construction of Sarah's basket is so easy that I just had to steal, er...borrow it for a longer lasting mini work basket. By using fabric and felt in place of the plate, and ribbon in place of the tape, you have a berry basket that is perfect for holding your hexagon work, keys and loose change, or even to hold a little gift.

You can alter the size to whatever you want, really. Just use different sizes of plates and square base templates. Just be aware that as you make these larger, they will get a bit more floppy. Hey! That just adds to the charm!



You will need:

Felt
Fabric
Decorative ribbon or twill tape
Thread
A plate
A marker and pencil
Scissors
Pinking shears
Pins
A square template of some kind (the size that you want the base of the basket to be)
A ruler
A needle




Place the plate on the felt and trace around it using a marker. Do the same on the back side of the fabric. You can use a marker for this too, but a pencil won't cause you any bleed through issues.



Cut out the felt circle with regular scissors, and cut out the fabric with pinking shears for a cute edge. When cutting the fabric, trim the circle just inside the traced line so that it comes out a bit smaller than the felt.



Place the fabric right side up on the felt, then pin the layers together.




Flip the circle over and place your square template (I used a CD-R sleeve) in the center of the felt. Lay the ruler along the edge of the square and draw a line from the upper left corner to the edge of the circle. Rotate and repeat this step for each corner of the square.

Cut on the marked lines, creating a sort of pinwheel shape. For reference, my circle is about 11 inches, and the square I used was about 5 inches. A smaller square base would give me a smaller basket with taller sides. Make sense?




Fold the edges up so that there's a straight edge at each outside corner, and so the wedge flap is inside. Pin these at each corner.



Wrap the ribbon around the basket so that it's even in height on all sides. Pin as you wrap, and use the top of the corners as a guide for the height. Cut the ribbon with about 1/4 inch extra so you can fold over the end.




Thread the needle with a doubled length of thread to match your ribbon. Stitch the ribbon to the basket along both edges of the ribbon, and the folded end. Take care to get through all of the layers where the wedge flaps overlap near the corners.

The teal dashed line in the center of my ribbon is part of the original ribbon, but you could stitch yours on with running stitch like this too. The stitches don't need to be perfect, but you should aim for pretty!



Look at that! A finished basket! Those extra little flaps can be trimmed down (so long as you don't cut apart the stitching!), but they won't be in the way if you leave them.



Fill your basket with some stitching supplies, or make it a more authentic felt berry basket with some felt strawberries!

What I love most about this basket is that it gave me a good reason to use some of my favorite fabric (must buy more at JoAnn while they have it!) and a piece of ribbon I bought in England. I do love ribbons, but never use them enough. Can you relate? This is the perfect project to show off some of your stash!