Here are the measurements you need:
H = height of basket
L = length of long side of basket opening
S = length of short side of basket opening
A = seam allowance for side and base seams
T = top opening turn-down allowance

In the basket I just made, these numbers were 12, 16, 8, 1/2, and 0, all in inches.

There will be vertical seams down the center of each short side. If you want to make a cube, H, L, and S will all be the same number. A and T will often also be the same number; for me, A is almost always 1/2″. If you want to have a lined basket where the outer fabric folds over the inner fabric and then under itself to give a clean edge, you’ll need two different values of T: 0 for the lining pieces and at least 1″ for the outer pieces (that would give a half-inch band around the inside top, with a half-inch turn-under of the raw edge); if I were doing this I would probably want a T of 2″ so a half-inch first fold would leave a 1.5 inch second fold, which is to say an inch and a half wide band of outer fabric around the top of the inside. At least for a large basket I would want a wide band like that.

As before, the rectangles below are not to scale. The cut-outs are larger than they would typically be, for ease of placing readable measurements on them.

Example: no turn-down at top because basket will be bound around top, seam allowance elsewhere is 1/2″.

If this were a file box, L = 15″, S = 12″, H = 10″, we’d have the following.

It would be easy to modify this so there is a 1″ band of outside fabric at the top of the lining, with a 1/2″ turn-under at the bottom of the band. The lining would be cut by measurements of Example 1. The outer fabric would be cut almost the same, but the upper part of the side would be H + 2. For the file box, that makes it 12″.

I hope these are useful diagrams. Let me know if you make something with them!

The post Calculating your own basket pattern appeared first on ReveDreams.com.

Body of Basket:

I made a paper pattern for the main basket pieces (diagram below) and cut two of it from each of three fabrics: outer basket fabric (patterned outdoor home dec fabric), basket lining fabric (solid cotton duck), and thin fleece. Later I discovered the pattern was five inches too wide – there was a 17″ measurement, and I thought good, that’s twice as wide as a sheet of paper. Well, you can probably guess what I did, and if not there’s a photo below.

The pattern was good but I have to figure out how to make linings fit well inside thick bags. The bottom interior is a bit scrunched to fit, even though I sewed the outer layer with 1/8″ smaller seam allowance than the inner layer. I also ended up trimming about 1/4″ off the top of the lining when I nested the layers and sewed them together. If I were doing it again I would also pony up for fusible batting and attach it to the outer layer (probably stopping 1/2″ in from the non-top edges) to eliminate the possibility that some of my issues are due to the loose fleece lining being in the wrong place.

Sewing was fine: after applying pockets and handles to right sides, place each layer right sides together and stitch the sides and base, leaving the cut-out corners open. I did the lining and fleece at 1/2″ and the outer fabric at 3/8″. Press the seams open. Now open out the layers and re-fold so the cut-outs close up: meet the ends of the side and base seam; the raw edge will go from cut-out corner to corner with the seam ends in the middle. Stitch these lines. This one I did all layers at 1/2″, so the seams in the outer layer would still be 8″ long.

To do the final assembly, I marked the center of each long side on each layer, nested them, and matched their side seams and side centers. Then I pinned regularly all around and did a long, wide zigzag to baste. After that is when I trimmed 1/4″ off the lining, having pinned so it was sticking up. Finally I bound the raw edge with bias tape sewed on from the inside, and tacked down on the outside with a decorative zigzag.

Handles:

The handles themselves are great. Cut two 4″ by 20″ strips from the lining fabric. Sew each into a tube with a 1/2″ seam and turn right side out. Press so the seam is down the center of one side, fold each end to the interior by 1″, and press again. Stitch down the center of each handle to secure.

I sewed the handles onto the outer fabric with their interior bottom corners 3″ down from the top and 11″ in from the closer side, so they’d be centered and 3″ apart. The sewing itself was contained in a 1.5″ box at the bottom of the handle. I don’t know whether it’s the lowness of the handles or the alignment of the basket layers, but when you pick up the basket the outer layer pulls up, causing the part above the handles to fold over the top of the basket. Not really a problem but not as attractive as I would like. I suspect having batting fused to the outer layer and securing the handles through it as well would help.

Making pockets:

The pockets had their own issues, but unlike the layers I know how to fix them. Here’s what I cut for pockets, one from each (non-fleece) fabric except where noted. They are all written as width by height.
Large flat: 13″ x 9.5″.
Large darted: 14″ x 10″.
Small flat: 4″ x 9.5″.
Small darted (two from each fabric): 5″ x 5.5″.

If I were doing it again I would leave the small pockets as is but add a half inch to the long side of the large flat pocket and probably a quarter inch to the long side of the large darted pocket. They both came out large enough for my purposes (paper) but barely. I lost more size in the turning than I expected, presumably due to the heaviness of the fabrics.

All pockets were ultimately sewn right sides together leaving a gap on one edge, clipped, pressed, turned, and topstitched all the way around. Before that, though, the darted pockets had additional steps.

To create the darts I folded the bottom corners right side enclosed with raw edges meeting, marked on the raw edge 1/2″ from the corner, and then on the fabric 1″ from the corner along the raw edge and 1/2″ up from there. I stitched between those two points and then up to the fold: perpendicular to the raw edge on the small pockets and at a gentler angle on the large one, ending about 1.5″ and 2″ along the fold from the corner, respectively.

After clipping the point off (left picture above) and snipping up the fold a little (right picture above), I tried to open out the darts on the large pocket. It didn’t necessarily work that well. With the small pockets I just bent the dart one direction or the other.

The small darted pockets had yet another step: I wanted them to snap closed, so I sewed their top seam and then secured half a snap to the top center of the lining before doing the rest of the pocket construction.

Attaching pockets:

I lined the pockets up on the lining fabric so they would be 4.5″ in from each side and 2″ down from the top. The small darted pockets are stacked vertically so the lower one lines up at the bottom with the large darted pocket. They are all topstitched onto the lining fabric with a bar tack at the top of each side; for the large darted pocket I made the bar tacks first and then got the rest of the pocket pinned and sewn, but when I went to do the small darted pockets that seemed unnecessary.

When you place the darted pockets you have to measure to get their tops the correct width: 3″ for the small and 12″ for the large (if I made the larger version I’d make that 12.25″). You can pin them down all the way around; the extra fabric will bunch up into a sort of Y shape (right picture above).

I sewed the lower small darted pocket first so I would have easy access to its top opening to attach the other half of the snap to the lining fabric in the right place (I sewed my snaps by machine). It’s off-center because the snap half on the pocket is off-center.

With both pockets and handles I was unusually careful with finishing the stitching: I took all threads to the back and tied them off, then used Fray-Check around the outsides of the corners (on the wrong side of the basket fabric) and on and around the bar tacks. Those will be the areas with the most strain so this should hopefully help with longevity – I do like the basket enough to want it to last!

The post Sewing the basket: what went right and wrong appeared first on ReveDreams.com.

I’ve mentioned that I was thinking I’d buy a large basket for this purpose. The local co-ops stock fair trade woven baskets, and some are quite large. They are lovely but I couldn’t seem to settle on one – none of them had colors or patterns I was in love with. Meanwhile, I realized that sewing a lining for the basket, as I planned to do to prevent snags and add pockets, would be nearly as much work as simply sewing a basket.

I bought fabric before designing the pattern and so ended up with a yard and a half of each of two home dec fabrics: a patterned “outdoor” fabric and a solid cotton duck. I could have gotten by with 3/4 of a yard of each, as it turns out, so I’ll have to find another use for the rest.

Staring at the yardstick led me to write down a pattern for a 9″x18″x12″ basket, but I started thinking that was maybe excessive, and calculated out a smaller one as well. To check, I made a paper “basket” that was 8.5″ by 16″ by 11″, with no bottom, and decided that was quite large enough, so I went with the 8″x16″x12″ version of my design (it doesn’t sound like a major change, but the difference is a shoebox plus a kleenex box worth of space). For sturdiness, the basket has an inner layer of thin fleece from my stash – all these sorts of projects seem to use batting for interfacing, so that’s what I was going for.

The basket is twice as big in one direction than the other partially so it will sit alongside pieces of furniture with a lower profile, but also so that it could have some large flat pockets on the inside, for printed-out patterns. I knew I wanted a large flat pocket for the afghan pattern and a large slightly non-flat pocket for the blackwork pattern and hooped map-in-progress. I decided to add a pocket for my crochet hook, and as long as I was at it, some shorter pockets for this and that (embroidery floss, stitch markers, etc). The tall thin hook pocket is flat and the shorter, squarer pockets are not. The shorter pockets also snap to the basket lining at the top, to keep those little odds and ends in place.

So I wouldn’t have to deal with turning down the edges at the top and capturing the fleece and what have you, I bound the top of the basket with bias tape (more extra wide double fold, baby).

The sewing was time consuming (mostly because of pocket construction) and not everything is as flawless as I might hope, but I’ll show you how I made it later in the week. Flaws and all, I am quite pleased with how this came out, and I expect it will come in handy many times in the future. It would be a nice bag for car travel as well as projects.

Now I’m eyeing my threadbare purse…

The post Fabric craft basket appeared first on ReveDreams.com.