Tuesday, November 20, 2012

Birch Block Printed Baskets


This birch-print basket is a sweet little project for a rainy Sunday.  Making your own fabric baskets, at its most basic, is a straight-forward DIY that has one fantastic benefit: you can optimize storage space by custom-size it to the shelf you're putting it on.  For this particular basket, I bought a yard of thick cotton canvas from a local fabric shop for less than $10. The stiffer the fabric, the better the structure.  The corners of the canvas seemed to naturally curl, reminding me of the papery outer bark of a birch tree.


After measuring the shelf space and adding an inch on all sides for a 1/2" seam allowance, I cut out the 5 rectangular pieces which would later form the sides and bottom.  Using a newly purchased block printing starter kit, I cut out 4 rubber stamps to mimic the line markings on birch bark.

Stamp out your print, press to fix the paint, and sew away.  To make it easy, I didn't double-fold the seam or serge to hide the fraying edges, but feel free to do as you please.  Make sure you sew up the top seam last.

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