Great big scrappy fabric basket

The last 10 days have gone by in a bit of a blur. Returning to work is hard....it takes so much time to get used to the pace of a working day again, doing all the family stuff in the evenings and even having to travel for a couple of days for training. So crafting has been a bit hit and miss here in the last couple of weeks and I haven't gotten close to replying to emails unfortunately.

But I did manage to get one of this month's scrappy projects finished for my Put Your Scraps to Work challenge .....a lovely fabric storage basket made out of scraps, for my scraps. Seeing as the scrap pile was completely out of control, I needed something new to put them in and decided to divide them up by colours - cool, warm and neutrals & multicoloured/novelty. As I said previously, I really want my scrappy projects to be practical as well as pretty so a basket was a great project to start with.

 I meant to post progress pics of this, but what with the travel and the kids and falling asleep on the sofa within an hour of sitting down in the evenings, I just didn't get to. So here's a recap - you'll have seen some of these pics before if you follow me on Instagram or FB.

I started off just piecing random scraps together. It is improv in terms of the method - no plan, I just put pieces together - but I didn't go completely crazy and wonky, I kept it reasonably squared off to fit with the shape of the basket. Some of my fave scraps went into these panels; I love the hedgehogs, and the tree, all the dots. The bear and the whales and owls. I really had fun making it.

I decided to try matchstick quilting. It's pretty haphazard, not a straight line in there (I believe the official word is "organic"). I really love how dense it is. And how it turned out. I used Aurifil medium turquoise 50wt thread. I'm normally very boring with my thread colour choice, sticking to neutrals, but decided to give this a whirl and I have to admit I absolutely love it. The turquoise pops off it and gives the quilting an extra nice feel.

I used Nova's great pattern to make these. I did think a bit before buying it, as fabric baskets are not the most complicated thing in the world to make, and I've made them before. But I love how all the measurements are done for various sizes, and there are lots of options there that there are additional measurements for too. Well worth the few euro for it when I keep using it over and over again.

 

 I made the 9" basket and I could probably go up a couple of inches as my Expedit bookcase would take a bigger basket, and I certainly don't have all my scraps in here yet. Aren't those little scraps there pretty? I love looking at this from different angles. I keep seeing favourite prints. See that tiny bit of blue and red paisley over the navy Saffron Craig print with the birds? That paisley is a Tanya Whelan and one of my all time faves. I sadly put the tiny last bit I had in there....and then someone was selling it in the IG destash on Sunday night and now I have 3/4 yard of it again...hooray.

I used a few large scraps for the lining. Honestly, apart from the green dinos, none of them are prints I really like a whole pile, but I wanted to use them as I suffer from quilter's disease (I cannot throw out perfectly useable, if ugly, fabric) and they won't really be seen as I'm anticpating that this basket will most likely fill as fast as I can empty it. 

I am very pleased with this. Love how it turned out. And love how useful it is.

How are your scrappy projects coming along? Are you making progress? Don't forget I'll be posting a linky on the last day of the month for you to show off your makes. I had a few questions about the degree of finished-ness required to link up. This is a very relaxed kind of scrap challenge.I just want people to have fun and use up their scraps in the process. So blocks, quilt tops etc are all fine to link up. It doesn't have to be totally 100% finished (although it probably works best if you are finished a "stage" rather than right in the middle of piecing something).

Can't wait to see what you've been making :-)