Salt Air fabric basket

For ages I have wanted to make a fabric basket using the tutorial by Ayumi Mills on her Pink Penguin blog.  Having just realised how quick it is to make a little project rather than a whole quilt, even a crib size one, I jumped right in.

I had some squares left over from this little quilt which I made a while ago using a pattern from Another Bite of Schnibbles by Carrie Nelson.

It was fun to make and if you have never tried stitching partial seams, don't be afraid; they are not hard to do and you get the really cool effect of the pieces evenly balanced around the centre square.  This looks especially good if all four pieces are different fabrics.










The line is Salt Air by Cosmo Cricket, and two charm packs plus a metre or so of the linen and lining fabric were enough to make the quilt and the basket.

I love the way the fabrics remind me of beach huts and summer days: the rings make me think of lifebelts, though I also refer to this as my doughnut quilt!









Amazingly enough, I had exactly the right number and shades of buttons in my button box.  I didn't need to hide my seam intersections as the pattern went together really neatly - so nice when that happens.  I just felt an extra pop of colour was called for in a fun little quilt.


So back to the main object of this post and this week's finish:



I found I had enough 2 1/4"squares left from the quilt border and these were already stitched together in rows, so rather than unpick and trim down to 2" as per Ayumi's pattern, I made the basket a little larger.

I had just enough of the linen-look fabric and the lining (which was the quilt backing fabric) too.  So it was definitely meant to be.
















I think I made the handles a little long, trying to rescale the pattern, so I will make the next one exactly as per Ayumi's design.  Mine is a bit more of a bucket than a basket, but maybe that's in keeping with the seaside theme? 

Linking to Finish it up Friday with Crazy Mom Quilts.

Happy weekend!