Several years ago I picked up a pattern from a local Colorado quilt pattern company called Curiosity. If you want to see some really lovely patterns check them out, as far as I can tell they are still in business. They had the most beautiful appliqué patterns, many of them done with baskets. They have some nice directions for weaving fabric baskets that can be found here. I was really afraid to try this until a few weeks ago because I thought it would be hard. Boy was I wrong. It’s very simple and really really fun. This method for baskets can be adapted to just about any basket you find on an appliqué pattern.
For the basket in my Miss Betty pattern I used ½ yard of fabric. From this I cut and made 10 bias stems, ¼” wide and two bias stems ½” wide. After making these I traced JUST the pattern for the basket onto my background fabric.
Next, place your background onto some suitable pinning surface. Start at one side of the basket drawing and pin a strip along the edge.
Continue pinning at regular intervals until you have all the vertical strips done.
Now using the remaining strips and starting at the bottom, weave a strip in and out of the vertical stems as shown. Weave each strip in the opposite way as the previous strip to get that basket look.
After you have done a few of these, tuck the strips down so that they are packed fairly tight.
When you have woven most of the horizontal strips, cut the ends so they can be easily tucked under the side vertical strip.
Using the fabric glue of choice, secure these ends. Repeat on the other side.
As you can see here, I wove most of the basket and glue basted it. I then did the final horizontal strips and secured these. Finally, when all the weaving was done, I secured the vertical strips with some fabric glue. I didn’t bother to tuck these since they will be covered with the basket top and bottom.
Come back tomorrow to see how it was all finished!
This is awesome. Thank you for the pictures.
Posted by: LA | 04/27/2011 at 07:48 AM
Excellent tutorial. Great technique. Beautiful basket. Thanks, Erin. Also, that is a perfect fabric choice for the basket; do you know what fabric/manufacturer (i.e., is it a Moda Marble, a Kona, a Benartex,..?) you used for the basket?
Posted by: FrancesB | 04/27/2011 at 09:02 AM
You always make it all look so straight forward with your great tutorials. I love this basket appliqué and look forward to seeing more of it :-)
Posted by: Raewyn | 04/27/2011 at 12:32 PM
Thank you for always passing along the knowledge :)
Great pictures and great tutorial
Have a Happy Sewing Day
Marta
Posted by: marta antoine | 04/27/2011 at 12:46 PM
I made some woven baskets years ago, but I can see it would be so much easier today using the fabric glue. I agree with you about the Curiosity patterns. I own many of their patterns from when they first went into business.
Thanks for the great blog.
Posted by: Peggy | 04/27/2011 at 08:29 PM
This looks lovely, Erin! I am going to try to make one soon, thanks for the tutorial and the photos! You are a really good teacher!
Digna
The Netherlands
Posted by: Digna | 04/27/2011 at 11:57 PM
These are SO awesome looking. I really love how realistic they look. Great job and fantastic tutorial. Thank you so much.
Posted by: VickiT | 04/28/2011 at 03:52 PM
WOW, incredible piece of work!
Posted by: simone | 05/03/2011 at 03:41 AM
Craft is such a great thing that it interest anyone towards it. At the first glance I thought that it would be hard to make this but finally after reading the whole stuff. I was quite surprised, even I can make this.
Posted by: Baskets | 10/12/2011 at 10:05 PM