Laundry Day - How to make a fabric laundry basket

For the Project Quilting Challenge for this week the theme was "Scraptastic" and I have a lot of scraps to choose from.  For my project I used all scrap fabrics and batting. The binding and interfacing were not scraps, but you could use scrap pieces for those too. Over the years I have collected scraps from different projects: aprons, potholders, table runners, quilts, sun dresses...  You name it I have probably made it.  I've got scraps galore.   I keep them color coordinated and rolled up tightly and held together with a pin so I can find what I am looking for. There are some that are not put in rolls yet in the photo but when I can't get to the rolls without pulling out all the new pieces I will sort through them and put them in the correct roll.  I pulled out the red and black rolls and these are the scraps I started with.

I was trying to think outside of the box for this one, but nothing came to mind.  So instead of just making a quilt or table runner with the scraps, I asked my husband what we could use for the camper that I could make, so the idea of a laundry basket came up.  So with that I went to my sewing kingdom and picked out some red and black and white scraps from my bin. 

To make it a true scrap project I also used leftover canvas fabric for a lining and pieces of cotton batting to give it a little substance when I quilted the fabrics.  

I cut up the pieces in (atleast) 22 inch lengths with varying widths, laid them out in a black/red pattern and stitched them together until I had the correct circumference for the circle. I had about 25 different pieces of fabric for this project.  My length was 67.5" long once I trimmed up the edges.

 I found a calculator online that gave me the correct circle size for the bottom.

 

When it was all sewed together and trimmed to about 18" I ironed on interfacing to make it a little stiffer so it would stand up on it's own.  I did not have scraps for that job so I had to use what I had on the bolt.  I also stitched together some pieces of a guitar canvas fabric I had left over from a baby shower gift I had made - she was decorating in a rockstar for her son and I made some toy bags out of the canvas.  Her son is 5 now and I had not used that fabric since the shower so it is getting use now, I really didn't want to put any "extra" money into this project.

Next was the fun puzzle part, I grabbed my bag of cotton batting scraps and started laying them out onto the canvas so they could be quilted into my bag.  I overlapped them just a little bit so they would not leave a gap in the batting if it shifted.  After I sandwiched my quilt fabric together and pinned ready to be quilted.

I wanted to try something new for the quilting and I had seen a vine with leaves in it so I figured this would be the perfect piece to try it out on since it was just a laundry basket that I was keeping.  It really came out nice.

I trimmed up the quilted piece and sewed the edges together to make my "tube".  I then added the bottom circle of canvas to the entire piece and stitched that on.  I did stitch an overlock stitch on the edge to keep the fabric from fraying with use.  I put on a piece of black binding around the top and stitched a couple 12" handle pieces out of the guitar fabric and sewed them to the inside of the bag.

Bag complete with 4 days to spare and 38 days to spare before camp opens.  Hope you like my scrappy "Laundry Day" bag.

I still have a wee little bit of the guitar fabric left over so I may be able to squeeze out a sleeping bag pouch for the new dinosaur sleeping bags I purchased for my grandsons.  I'll see if I have enough.  I may make up my own scraptastic sleeping bag pouches for them before camp opens!!!  OOOOOHHHH - I did buy dinosaur fabric for a quilt for my oldest grandson "Dino" Daniel, so I might have to use that and just make him a little pillow cover with the rest.  I guess I have another project to complete!


Until I craft again.