feeling stitchy: Tutorial Tuesday

Happy Tuesday, everyone!

Today's tutorial is a little basket, fun for Easter egg hunts and treats that the Springtime brings. I found a fun Spring and Easter Eggstravaganza PDF embroidery pattern pack over at The Split Stitch and used it to create the front of this Easter basket.

This little basket came together very quickly. To make your own you'll need the following supplies:

-Two 10x10-inch pieces of exterior fabric (I used white cotton muslin)

-Two 10x10-inch pieces of interior fabric

-Two 10x10-inch pieces of felt for lining

-One 18x5-inch piece of fabric for the strap

-Embroidery pattern of choice (I used this one)

-Embroidery hoop and floss in Spring pastel colors

-Coordinating thread

-Sewing machine

-scissors

-Iron and Ironing board

Step One: Begin by embroidering one of the exterior pieces of fabric. The pattern pack I used from The Split Stitch came with the font for the word "Easter," and I used those letters to create the word "eggs."

Step Two: With a finished embroidered exterior piece, now you can begin to build the basket. Create a sandwich beginning with a layer of felt, exterior fabric right side up, exterior fabric wrong side up, and another piece of felt. You want to make sure you have the right sides of the exterior fabric facing each other in between the pieces of felt. Then sew a 1/4-inch seam along the sides and bottom leaving the top open.

Step Three: In order to square the bottom of the basket, take one corner and press it flat so the seams are touching and it creates a triangle. The seams should be flat and pressed open, which I forgot to demonstrate in this step, but it's correct in Step Five. Stitch 2-inches down from the point or peak of the triangle. Repeat on the other corner and clip the excess. Set this piece aside.

Step Four: Place the interior pieces right sides together and stitch around the sides and bottom leaving a 2-inch unstitched space on one side in order to flip the basket inside out.

Step Five: Square off both bottom corners of the interior piece the same as the exterior piece from Step Three above, making sure to press open the seams.

Step Six: Now it's time for the strap. Take the 18x5-inch piece, fold it in half along the long edge and press.

Open up this piece and fold each long side in halfway, so that the edge meets the fold line you just created, and press.

Fold the strap in half again, so the folded edges meet, and press.

Sew a 1/4-inch seam along both long edges of the strap.

Step Seven: Now the basket can be assembled. Place the interior piece inside of the exterior piece, right sides together. Take the strap, place it inside the basket body, between the exterior and interior pieces. Making sure not to twist it, match each short edge with a side seam, pin in place.