Wool Felt Applique Easter Baskets Tutorial

With East­er just around the corner I thought it would be fun to share a tutori­al for these cute East­er bas­kets.  They are made using a wool felt applique meth­od I learnt in a Quilt­Con class with Betz White (a pic­ture of the pil­low I made can be seen in my pre­vi­ous post).   I love the defin­i­tion this meth­od provides and, being a touchy feely kinda per­son, the 3D effect it produces.

If East­er Bas­kets aren’t your thing you could always make a fab­ric stor­age or scrap bin by sourcing a dif­fer­ent pic­ture to suit the pur­pose of your bas­ket.    This tutori­al is for a bas­ket that is 6″ high, deep and wide but you could eas­ily adjust the pat­tern to make any size you like. Ready?

You will need:-

• 3 fat quar­ters or scraps from your stash
• Wool felt
• Bag batting/ByAnnie’s Soft & Stable
• Water Sol­uble sta­bil­izer — I used Sulky Print­able Fabri-Solvy
• 505 spray adhes­ive or similar
• Heat & Bond Iron on Adhesive
• Paper Cut­ting Scissors
• Small Embroid­ery scissors
• Coordin­at­ing thread
• Print­able Tem­plates avail­able here —  Bun­nies or East­er Eggs

From the fat quarter you will be using for the main part of the bas­ket cut:

• 4 — 5″ x 6 ¹⁄₂″ rect­angles for the bas­ket sides
• 1 — 6 ¹⁄₂″ x 6 ¹⁄₂″ square for the bot­tom of the basket

From the fat quarter you will be using for the accent pieces & handles cut:

• 4 — 2 ¹⁄₄″ x 6 ¹⁄₂″ rect­angles for the accent pieces on each side
• 2 — 4″ x 7 ¹⁄₂″ rect­angles for the handles

From the fat quarter you will be using for the inside of the bas­ket cut:

• 4 — 6 ¹⁄₂″ x 6 ³⁄₄″ rect­angles for the lin­ing sides
• 1 — 6 ¹⁄₂″ x 6 ¹⁄₂″ square for the lin­ing bottom
• You’ll use some of the leftovers for the applique

From the bag bat­ting cut:

• 4 — 6″ x 6″ squares
• 2 — 1″ x 7 ¹⁄₂″ rectangles

Wool Felt Applique

You will be work­ing on the wool felt appli­qué first.   Print or trace the tem­plates onto the water sol­uble sta­bil­izer.   Tip: Make sure your print­er does not auto scale or rotate the tem­plates when print­ing!   I only placed the applique on the front and back of the bas­ket but you could pop them on all sides if you prefer.

1.    Peel the back off your water sol­uble sta­bil­izer and stick it on to the wool felt.   Lay­er the wool felt on top of a piece of your bas­ket lin­ing fab­ric which is right side up.  Pin the three lay­ers togeth­er mak­ing sure you don’t have any big wobbles or bobbles (yes they are offi­cial terms here at SheQuilt­sAlot!) in the fabric.

2.    Using a stand­ard stitch on your sew­ing machine sew around the applique shape at least twice.   I used my stand­ard ¹⁄₄″ piecing foot but you could use a walk­ing foot if you prefer.   Sew slowly to make sure you stay on or fairly close to the line.   Once you’re done sew­ing, fol­low the dir­ec­tions on the pack­et to remove the sta­bil­izer from the applique piece and hang it up to dry.   (You can skip ahead to the bas­ket con­struc­tion while the applique is dry­ing if you want to).

3.    With the sta­bil­izer washed away and, after its dry, your applique will look a little some­thing like the pic­ture below.

4.    Care­fully insert your pointy (and sharp!) embroid­ery scis­sors between the felt and fab­ric and cut away the wool felt leav­ing a ¹⁄₁₆″ or so of felt inside the sewn line.  IMPORTANT: Don’t cut the fab­ric behind the wool felt oth­er­wise you’ll need to start again like I did the first time I tried this.

5.    Apply the Heat & Bond iron on adhes­ive to the wrong side of the fab­ric behind the wool felt applique using the instruc­tions that came with the product.

With the Heat & Bond attached, you can now trim around the out­side of the applique shape leav­ing ¹⁄₁₆″ of wool felt out­side of the sewn line.   When you’re fin­ished your applique shapes should look like the image below (the East­er Bunny has been inten­tion­ally left wrong side up so you can see the Heat & Bond).  Set the applique shapes aside for now.

Bas­ket Construction

7.    Using a ¹⁄₄″ seam allow­ance, sew a 2 ¹⁄₄″ x 6 ¹⁄₂″ accent rect­angle to a 5″ x 6 ¹⁄₂″ bas­ket rect­angle.   Repeat with the remain­ing accent and bas­ket rect­angles (you will need 4 side pan­els).    Press the seams open and then make a pen­cil mark 1 ¹⁄₄″ in from each side on the right side of two side pan­els.   These marks will be used later to line up the bas­ket handles.    Next, on the wrong side of each of the 4 side pan­el make a couple of small pen­cil marks ¹⁄₂″ down from the top of the accent piece.   You will use these marks to line up the bag batting.

8.    Lightly spray a 6″ x 6″ square of bag bat­ting with spray adhes­ive and place it on the wrong side of one of the side pan­els.   Use the marks you made in the pre­vi­ous step to make sure the bag bat­ting is placed a ¹⁄₂″ down from the top of the accent piece and a ¹⁄₄″ from the sides and bot­tom.  Repeat for the remain­ing side panels.

9.    Repeat with the remain­ing 6″ x 6″ square of bag bat­ting and place it on the wrong side of the 6 ¹⁄₂″  square of fab­ric.   This will become the bot­tom of the bas­ket.   Tip: I like to quickly press the fab­ric after I’ve attached the bag bat­ting, I find it helps ensure that the adhes­ive is set prop­erly, it also lets me smooth out any wrinkles if I need to.

10.   The sides and bot­tom of the bas­ket will need to be quilted to pre­vent the bag bat­ting from shift­ing later.   I used a simple straight line stitch ¹⁄₈″ on either side of the accent/basket pieces and again ¹⁄₂″ up from the bot­tom of each piece.   For the bot­tom of the bas­ket I used the same straight line stitch ¹⁄₂″ in from each side.

11.   Ensur­ing that you place the side pan­els which have had the handle lines marked on them on oppos­ite sides of the bot­tom pan­el, use a ¹⁄₄″ seam allow­ance to sew each side pan­el to the bot­tom pan­el.  Start and stop ¹⁄₄″ from each end and tack back to secure your stitches.  Repeat with the remain­ing two side panels

12.   Place the com­pleted wool felt applique shape/s on the side pan­els which don’t have the handle marks on them (or on each pan­el if you prefer).   When you are happy with the place­ment, cov­er with a spare piece of fab­ric or press­ing cloth and press with a hot iron to adhere them to the bas­ket panels.

13.   Care­fully match two side pan­els and pin in place.   Using a ¹⁄₄″ seam allow­ance sew togeth­er.  Try not to sew the bag bat­ting into the seam allow­ance.   Repeat with the oth­er side seams.  Tip: Make sure the join between the accent and bas­ket piece matches up before you pin in place.

When all of the side seams have been joined you bas­ket should look like the image below.

14.   Turn the bas­ket right side out.  It’s worth spend­ing a little time at this stage to ensure the seam allow­ances are pulled through to the inside and the bag bat­ting is sit­ting nicely on all sides.

15.   Repeat steps 11. and 13. with the fab­ric  cut for the bas­ket lin­ing.   Make sure you attach a 6 ¹⁄₂″ side of each 6 ¹⁄₂″ x 6 ³⁄₄″ piece to the lin­ing piece (6 ¹⁄₂″ square) and not the 6 ³⁄₄″ sides.

16.   Press a ¹⁄₂″ seam around the top of the bas­ket lin­ing.  This will make it easi­er to match it up with the basket.

17.    Press each of the 4″ x 7 ¹⁄₂″ handles pieces in half along the long side.   Open them up again and then press each side towards the centre leav­ing slightly less than a ¹⁄₄″ gap from the first pressed line.   Insert the 1″ x 7 ¹⁄₂″ strip of bag bat­ting in one side (image 2).   Fold the half again and use bind­ing clips or pins to hold the open side  closed (image 3).   Sew ¹⁄₈″ in from the open side to secure it in place and repeat on the oppos­ite edge (image 4).  The handles can be popped aside for a minute while you get the bas­ket and lin­ing togeth­er.  Tip: I like to place a pen­cil mark a ¹⁄₂″ from each end of the fin­ished handle to use as a guide when I insert them into the basket.

18.    With the bas­ket right side out and the lin­ing wrong side out slip the lin­ing inside the bas­ket.   Start by fold­ing the bas­ket out­er fab­ric over the bag bat­ting.   Pop a pin through from the inside to the out­side to mark where the handles will go and then place a pin on the out­side of the bas­ket in the same spot.   You can then remove the pin from the inside.      Insert the handles between the bas­ket fab­ric and lin­ing fab­ric and pin securely in place to the out­side only.  Tip: The bas­ket handles start 1″ from the corners if you run into any trouble or for­get to mark the spot with a pin.

Work slowly around the bas­ket ensur­ing that each of your corner seams match up pin­ning the bas­ket to the lin­ing as you go.   As you go past each handle repos­i­tion your pin so that the lin­ing is caught as well.

19.    Fin­ish off your bas­ket by sew­ing ¹⁄₈″ and then ¹⁄₄″ around the top of the basket.

20.   Fill your bas­ket up with lots of lovely East­er good­ies or treats or, maybe if you leave it out the East­er Bunny will fill up for you!

If you make one of these little bas­kets it would be so great if you could let me know.  I’d love to see pic­tures of your fin­ished work too :), feel free to send me an email, tag me @shequiltsalot on Ins­tagram or use the hasht­ag #shequilt­saloteaster­bas­ket so I don’t miss it!

 

Until next time,