It’s my best friend’s birthday today and I’ve spent the morning making these baskets using the Pink Penguin tutorial. I decided to use chocolate-brown linen rather than natural in order to set off the bright colours that my friend likes. I also made one basket a bit larger so they can nest:
The tutorial is easy to follow and produces quite a dinky little basket – about 4 x 5 inches and 4 inches high excluding handles. With the larger basket I cut the patchwork squares a quarter inch bigger and enlarged the linen proportionally. I also made the handles slightly longer (and of course a bigger lining).
As one of the fat quarters I bought had lots of different coloured stripes, I could get two colourways out of it, and the second fat quarter doubled up as the lining. So it was quite an economical present – just two fat quarters, a small piece of linen (of which I have lots left over for other projects) and a little wadding – I had none in my stash, but again it’s something I will use up. And from that I got two cute-as-can-be storage baskets that my friend can use any way she likes.
I think they will start out with a filling of homemade cookies!
The little baskets are adorable — I am sure your friend will love them : )
They are fantastic!
[...] My longest-standing friend is having a Birthday tea on Sunday, so I put together some of Ayumi’s little baskets for her. I decided to ditch the patchwork altogether and just use the construction method to make a lined basket with a linen blend outer layer trimmed with polka-dot grosgrain ribbon. The ribbon and lining actually match much more closely than they appear to in the photo. I sized up one basket so they can nest, just like I did with the baskets I made for another friend last year. [...]