Let's make an Easter Basket

We are at the grocery store.
Kitty : Mom, we really have to get these Cadbury's Chocolate Eggs!Me: I don't think so, Kitty, it's not Easter yet.Kitty: But Mom! (I can see her little brain working furiously) Mom, I want make an Easter Basket and we can keep them in my basket until Easter.Me: Oh, what kind of basket do you want to make?Kitty: I want to, um, sew one.Me: Great!Kitty: I'll need your help.Me: OK.Kitty: So, can we get the Easter Eggs?Me: OK... but only for your basket.

(I'm a pushover, I know, but the little girl said she wanted to SEW a BASKET!)

And, sew a basket we did!

When we got home, we collected an old felted sweater, a needle, some thread and some yarn.
Here is a tutorial on how to felt a sweater if you've never tried it before and here's a previous post with a super tip for making learning to sew VERY child friendly.


We began by cutting a circle from the felted sweater. This circle is going to be the base of the basket so it can be any size you want your basket to be.


Then, as we talked about the dimensions of a circle, we discovered that if we wanted to measure the circumference, we could use a piece of yarn! If we laid the piece of yarn all the way around the outside of the circle, the circumference, we could determine how long the material for the sides of our basket had to be.


Indeed, this was a very exciting discovery!


We cut the yarn the right length and then laid it on the felted sweater and cut a length of felted sweater exactly the same length as the piece of yarn... just long enough to fit all around the circumference of our circle.


Despite all the excitement in the working out of our formula, we were amazed that the length we had just cut did, indeed, fit all the way around our circle base! 'It worked!!' Kitty exploded.

She put the 'sides length' on a flat surface and the placed the circle on top of it...


And then she started to sew the two together.

With great concentration, she sewed the 'sides piece' all the way around the circle.


Until the two ends joined.


Then, she sewed the join together.


We turned the basket inside out (which is actually the right side up) and were again amazed at how sweet it looked, all of the stitches now hidden inside the basket... especially when we flipped over the top to make a pretty rim... Kitty is quite the designer!


We cut a length of felted sweater for the handle.

Sewed it on to our basket.



Voila!!! Kitty, can you believe it, actually DID sew an Easter basket! Of course, the chocolate Easter eggs went straight into the soft and fluffy basket.


I adore this photo as it shows just how incredulous she was at the fact that she really had sewn an Easter basket!


Of course an egg did get eaten... an then another. And then 'Little Brother' got into them and had a whole handful... which luckily entitled Kitty to have a whole handful too, and so on, until Mother tried them and then they were gone, leaving the sweet little basket empty. Not to worry, Kitty demised... we'll just get more the next time we are at the grocery store!


Happy sewing with your child,
Blessing and magic,