TUTORIAL fabric basket for the sewing room...

I believe when you have a pretty sewing room, or sewing area in your home, inspiration comes far more easily to create.

Lately I've spent quite a bit of time in my sewing room making gifts, Stitchery Club projects and useful items for around our home, but as I've pulled out this fabric and that fabric to choose the right one (or two or three) for each project, my fabric shelves have lost that lovely order I crave and try to maintain.

Years ago I made some small fabric baskets for storing fat quarters in their various colour combinations but we've moved house five times since then and those little baskets were passed along to family or friends along the way and I never made any more.

However, I remember just how useful (and pretty) they were, and a few of them would certainly come in handy on my fabric shelves as well as adding a little shabby chic style eye candy for good measure. 

These are three of the stitcheries inside April's issue of The Stitchery Club...

They're the perfect size for my baskets and have all been sewn using the same threads and fabric range so my baskets will co-ordinate beautifully. 

I made one basket this afternoon while the wind howled and the rain fell and even though the lighting in my sewing room wasn't the best I still managed to take enough photos to share a tutorial with you in case you find yourself 'needing' some fabric organisation in your sewing room too.

Honest, these baskets are simple.

If you're savvy with quilting tweaks you can make them any size you like just by altering the size of the outer fabric and lining dimensions. Mine hold about 12 fat quarters.

So, to begin you'll need two different pieces of fabric measuring 7 1/2" x 19". One is for the outside of the basket and one is for the lining.

You'll also need some wadding or Pellon a little larger than your fabric, a length of lace (about 20" long), and one length of fabric 2 1/2" wide to make into quilt binding.

I have plenty of quilt wadding off cuts in my scrap box and love finding a use for them! This project is perfect for any pieces 8" x 20" or larger.

The floral fabric is for the outside of the basket and the cross fabric will be the lining.

I machine quilted the outer fabric to the wadding with horizontal double lines. You can do similar or perhaps hand quilt instead...

After quilting trim away the excess wadding.

Fold the quilted outer fabric in half and sew a 1/4" seam along the narrow end.

Press the seam open and sew a 1/4" seam along the bottom.

Trace a rectangle 1¾” up from the bottom and 1½”in from the side of each lower corner and cut it out ...

Spread the openings flat and sew along them with a 1/4" seam to close the hole.

This creates a boxed bottom.

Now turn the basket right side out.

At this stage I also made a little stitchery mini quilt which I'd fasten on the front later.

When I make this kind of stitchery display I measure 1/2" away from the edges of the design and trim it. This gives me 1/4" seam all around and a 1/4" distance between the stitchery and the seam.

The I lay it face down on another piece of fabric, sew around with a 1/4" seam leaving a 2" opening along one side for turning out. 

Ladder stitch the opening closed and I have my cute mini quilt ready for display.

Sew a length of lace around the top edge of the basket. My lace was narrow so I dropped it about 1/8" under the top edge as I wanted as much lace as possible to show through when the basket was finished.

Make the lining of your basket the same as you made the outer basket but without any wadding.

Place the lining inside the basket, wrong sides facing each other, and pin the lining and the outer basket together through all layers.

Sew around the very top of the basket with a scant 1/8 inch seam to secure the outer basket and the lining together before adding the binding.

I cut a piece of fabric 2 1/2" wide x 21" from a fat quarter for the binding and attached it the same way you'd fix binding to a quilt.

The final step was to sew my little mini quilt stitchery to the front with gorgeous pearl buttons. 

Filled with fat quarters from the same fabric range used to make the basket it looks beautiful!

Now to make another few, then the fabric shelves in my sewing room will be ordered, tidy and looking beautiful again.

Will you make some too?

Feature any stitchery you like for the front decoration or if you want to use the Sew & Sew one that's featured on mine you'll find the pattern here in my shop.

My basket was made using "Bayberry" fabrics by Kate & Birdie Paper Co of Moda.

I hope your Easter was special.

Our Resurrection Sunday was very special indeed, full of Cully May hugs and baby Rafaella cuddles, good food, laughter, conversation and memories made to treasure forever.

It was also life changing. Every year as I read, reflect and pray over the gift that Jesus gave us through His death and resurrection my heart grows with love for Him and the Lord expands my understanding of His sacrifice. 

What a gift He gave and continues to give...

hugs,

Block 4 of my BOM and some bunnies...

Today I actually made a few Easter toys I've wanted to sew for a long time but never actually gotten around to doing. 

As Cully May cannot have any dairy and does not have sugar either, I've made her and Rafaella some soft bunnies for Easter from a piece of beautiful red wool fabric. It's long been hidden in my stash and only sparingly used, but was perfect for the two bunnies.

Before I made any bunnies though, I stitched a cute little bag for Cully. The stitchery is part of a larger one by Natalie Bird which I found in an old issue of Homespun, the fabric is from "Bunnies & Cream" by Lauren Nash, and I made up the bag pattern as I went along.

Once Cully's bag was completed I decided to make Rafaella a soft toy and used this pattern by Betz White, though I did alter a few things like making a fabric applique heart and not using felted wool.

I just love the ears!

This was also my very first attempt at making a pom pom!

Not as hard as I imagined...

It was at this stage I realised that Cully May being almost 20 months, and Rafaella not quite 4 weeks, this bunny may end up in the wrong hands. Cully *loves* soft animals and I wouldn't blame her wanting her baby sister's bunny, so I decided to follow this idea and make her a different stuffed bunny, one that could be carried around in her bunny bag. Again, I altered the pattern to suit my ideas and it ended up really sweet and a perfect fit for the little bag...

Blossom tells me Cully is obsessed with rabbits (as well as Thomas the Tank) so you never know, I may end up making more bunnies in the weeks ahead. 

Our family has never really gone crazy over Easter eggs, and definitely not bunnies, but a couple of things I always taught them on Easter Sunday that brought all the goodies back to what Resurrection Sunday is all about are these...

Firstly, we didn't buy the children filled chocolate eggs, but the empty kind, and we'd crack those eggs open with a rousing shout of "Jesus is risen" because just like there was nothing inside the egg, so too there was no Jesus in the tomb. He had risen from the grave because death could not hold Him down. 

Secondly, as the children got a bit older we discussed the plentiful productivity of rabbits, their ability to bring forth an abundance of 'new life', and how because of Jesus' death and resurrection He made the way for all of us to have new life, eternal life, life far more abundant than any rabbit family.

These are the truths dear Blossom will teach her girls in years to come, and I'm sure the Lord will give her even more things from His life to share with them. 

I won't be blogging tomorrow as we're celebrating Resurrection Sunday here at home with Blossom, Ross and the babies, so a day early you are receiving Block 4 of my BOM, "A Year in the Garden".

My friend Fee's birthday is in April and her favourite flowers are roses which is why I designed this block with both her month and roses. 

The April pattern is a free download HERE in my shop until April 30th.

(in May it will become a $2 purchase)

The previous three blocks are also in my shop as a $2 purchase. 

You can see all the blocks here.

Thank you from the bottom of my heart for all the kind words, prayers, love and understanding you expressed in your comments and via email over my previous blog post.

Truly, there is more love in the world than we know, and here in my little corner of it I felt overwhelming love from all of you when I was climbing my way out of the valley.

Bless you so very much and may Jesus be your Light and Life this Easter and every day that follows, just as He is mine.

hugs

The greatest love...

The very first gift my husband bought me as newlyweds was a new Bible, and the second gift was a silver cross.

That Bible, affectionately known by Blossom as my 'fast-flickin' Bible because it's so worn and full of notes that I can find any passage very quickly, is falling apart from years of love and use. 

The silver cross, a relatively plain but not small cross, never left my neck for more than a decade and it too became battered and bruised through years of wear. 

But one day I looked on the cross with different eyes, letting the horror of Christ's crucifixion, the agony and pain and betrayal it signified, wash away my desire to wear that silver cross and so I took it off and packed it away. I no longer wanted to carry the symbol of an instrument of torture on my body.

Many years followed and each time we moved house, town or state, I'd look once more upon that battered silver cross and ponder what it stood for before replacing it with my other jewellery and packing it up in a moving box.

Then one day something changed. One move brought a change. Again we were moving house, and I held that silver cross in the palm of my hand and cried. The emotions I'd once felt washed away and all I saw in it was LOVE. 

The greatest LOVE.

The battered and neglected silver cross was placed back on a chain and as it rested on my chest I felt a surge of love and gratitude that filled me from head to toe. 

Satan can turn any beautiful thing into a source of discouragement, despair, rejection and pain. He relished the cross as it stood high on Calvary and he delighted in the agony of my Lord as he hung, clinging to life, bleeding, battered, disfigured from extreme physical torture. Satan stood ready to glory in his own victory as Jesus laboured with each final breath.

But that's not the end of the story. The life which slipped away from Jesus as he offered up His Spirit to the Father was not an end, not a victory for the powers of darkness...no, not at all!

In dying Christ destroyed the enemy's hold, snatching back the keys to the Kingdom, and in rising from the dead He stood triumphant over satan and opened wide the way back into the arms of God, a way marked out in His own blood shed for us. 

What satan meant for evil, God meant for good. 

What satan devised in pure hatred, God required for the fulfilment of pure LOVE. 

So for me, the cross today is a testament to LOVE, a LOVE that no man can be, no man can give, no man can create. 

This LOVE was paid for with Sovereign blood, and when the stone was rolled away that blood washed away satan's power...it washed over me, it washed over you, it cleans and repairs and renews and refreshes and instead of taking life it gives life. Life eternal. A LOVE life. A love gift that will never lose it's power to redeem the lost.

I first drew up this design in a simpler style just after I had that revelation of LOVE for the cross and shared it on my blog when I was just dipping my toes into the world of pattern design.

It was given to a friend who had just come to know Jesus and I've wanted to stitch it again ever since.

Last week I refined it, giving it more LOVE, a reflection of the increasing LOVE I have for Jesus with each passing day of my life. 

If you would like to stitch "The Greatest Love" please accept this as very small gift of love from me, flowing from the LOVE of our Saviour who gives the greatest gifts of all.

Download the free pattern here.

Your sister in Christ,