Rhonda Dort

Here’s an “on the fly” new tutorial:

About an hour ago I posted a picture of this basket on a great Facebook Group called Wool Applique. I got lots of pm’s and questions about how I made it so I decided to do a quick blog post about what I remember…because this was another one of my experimental projects from about 8 or 9 years ago.

I picked up this basket from Hobby Lobby because it had almost perfect horizontal and vertical lines. I knew that any angle other than 90 degrees would cause me some headaches. Plus, it has these great dividers! A win-win!

This is a wool on flannel appliqued project. It could easily be wool on wool, flannel on wool, wool on cotton…you get the idea.

Ok, so the picture below shows you how and where I joined the completed appliqued panel. Knowing what I know now, I could have and should have adjusted the brown stems to perfectly meet or at least appliqued a motif over their joining.

Once you’ve chosen your basket/box/container you’ll need to decide on your applique intentions, ie: your motifs, your sizes, your colors, etc. Your wool or flannel project should be stitched thru a single layer of batting. I used a white 50/50. This batting also gives the panel some “grip” and helps to hold it to the basket when you’re finished.

With your basket/box/container in hand and a medium weight non stretchy fabric, make a pattern of the needed panel. I used a medium weight natural muslin fabric.

The height of my panel needed to be minimum 5″ finished and 29 1/4″ wide around the top of the basket, 28′ at the bottom. In other words, my basket has a slight flair bottom to top. Make sure your pattern needs to fit perfectly. Remember, don’t stretch your pattern fabric.

Once you’ve recreated your basket panel onto your pattern fabric, add an additional 1/2″ to all sides. You know that the more hand work/applique you do to your panel, the more it has the chance of being “drawn in” in both height and width.

The sawtooth borders: they go on last, so don’t worry about them now.

Do all your handwork on your panel and when finished, lay it out on your basket. You can use long straight pins to hold it by sending them thru the panel and the spaces in the basket weave. You’re just interested in knowing how much of an overlap you’ll have at the center back at this point.

Determine where your center back seam should be located. Using white chalkboard chalk or something similar, mark and sew your back seam.

Very carefully easy your joined panel, from the bottom onto your basket body. Carefully!

You can either tuck under or carefully trim away any flannel and batting overhand, top and bottom at this point. Remember, both these edges will be covered with the sawtooth strip you’ll make next.

If you’re happy with the fit, gently pat it into place. Here’s where that 50/50 batting helps tremendously!

The sawtooth edge does double duty: it covers your raw edge of the basket panel and it gives a nice finished look to your project. Cut 2 strips of black wool/flannel/etc. 1″ larger than your BASKET TOP measurement. Using white chalk again, I marked every 1/2″ and then using some very sharp scissors, I cut my sawtooth edge.

Once my sawtooth borders were cut, using Roxanne’s Glue Baste, I glued the top and bottom borders in place, cutting away any excess. If you’re worried about the glue baste holding at the sawtooth joining edge, take a stitch or two in a matching thread.

Let me know if you have questions, and until then: Happy Stitching,

Rhonda