Making a Fabric Basket (or Tub)

Posted on October 22, 2020 by thequiltedcat

Hi everyone!

Recently, I came across a fun sew along on Instagram where the participants were making fabric baskets, also called tubs. I was intrigued by them, by I knew that I didn’t have time to complete one within the sew along timeframe. I purchased the pattern called “Tub Family” from RosieTaylorCrafts on Etsy, and set it aside for a couple of days.

Then, several weekends ago, I had a few hours to try my hand at making one. The pattern comes with 3 sizes of fabric baskets, and I opted to make the largest one. I have some of the beautiful Homemade fabric by Tula Pink, which I think is absolutely perfect to make all sorts of things for my sewing room.

The pattern walks you through the construction steps pretty well, but I have a few pointers if you decide to make one.

Once you have your main basket panel, liner, and foam all ready for quilting, I do recommend using the straight-line quilting as mentioned in the pattern. I tried doing an all over swirly type quilting on my test basket, but I had a much harder time attaching the bottom and getting the basket to sit properly. It’s just kinda floppy!

On my “real” basket, I did straight-line quilting using a beautiful Aurifil bright green thread with a seam guide on my Bernina. In the picture below, you can see my seam guide helped to give me perfect 1-inch quilting lines.

After quilting at 1-inch and .5-inch intervals, I had my finished main panel, ready for my quilt inspector. I used some fun Tula Pink ribbon along either side of the fussy cut sewing machine in the center of the panel. This pattern is so flexible that you could make baskets out of scraps, a single piece of fabric, or several large chunks like I did.

My finished main body panel with quilt inspector

After trimming the main panel to the correct size, I started to attach the base to the body. This step is the hardest part of the whole pattern because the base really needs to be eased in using clips or pins.

I used Clover clips to secure my base rather than pins. No blood! If the base is still too large after easing it, you may need to trim it down slightly.

The pattern does have you hand stitch the base to the body before using your sewing machine to help with puckers. I highly recommend doing this step. You can remove the clips after hand basting, and then use your machine to slowly and carefully stitch the base to the body.

I did my binding a bit different from the pattern by pressing one side in 1/4-inch so that I’d have a nice finished edge to work with when sewing the second long edge to the inside of the basket.

I did completely machine stitch my binding rather than hand sewing the inside, just for lack of time. I used the same color thread as the quilting, and I think it looks fine.

Here’s a look at my completed fabric basket, filled with some EPP supplies:

These baskets are addictive to make, and I want to try making the medium and small sized ones soon. Maybe Christmas themed ones as well!

There are many examples of completed baskets using the #tubfamily hashtag on Instagram.

Enjoy and happy sewing!

-Jen

A Modern Star Quilt – Zoomer!

Posted on May 13, 2018 by thequiltedcat

Happy Mother’s Day to everyone!

I recently finished a modern quilt called Zoomer. This pattern is by Elizabeth Dackson from the book, Rock Solid.

I used mostly solids but added a subtle print from Cotton + Steel in mint green. It adds just a hint of texture when you look at the quilt closely.

The quilt is pieced with Aurifil 50 weight thread in #2800, which is a very light mint color. For quilting, I used a similar light green mint by Omni. It blends in really well with the fabric colors without detracting from the modern design. I did free-motion swirls in the exploding star block, and I used my channel locks to quilt straight-lines in the negative space.

Here’s a look at the free-motion swirls on my HQ Avante:

Free-motion swirls on Zoomer

Here’s a look at the finished quilt in a field of Camas flowers:

Finished Zoomer Quilt

I also just finished another quilt using curved seams so I will blog about that one soon!

Happy quilting!

~Jen

Mt. Hood Elevated Abstractions Quilt

Posted on April 26, 2018 by thequiltedcat

Hello quilters!

I love the landscape of the west, particularly in my home state of Oregon. When I saw the Elevated Abstractions quilt by Violet Craft, I just knew that I had to make it.

This quilt is a wonderful abstraction of Mt. Hood. It is entirely foundation paper-pieced using Pure Elements Solids by Art Gallery fabric and Aurifil thread in 50 weight.

I wanted the quilting to take a back seat to the piecing so I took a modern approach with straight-line quilting using channel locks on my HQ Avante.

MtHood_2

Once I took the quilt off the frame, my trusty quilt inspector instantly arrived. How do cats know?

MtHood3

I decided that the quilt needed a pop of bright color for the binding so I dug into my stash and added some orange Notorious fabric by Cotton + Steel. Then, I took the quilt on a 9 mile round trip hike to visit Pup Falls in the Mt. Hood National Forest. Quite the scene for a little photo op! My son took this picture while I balanced precariously on the muddy trail, working hard to keep it out of all that mud!