Inspirations

Last week I pondered the art of pinning and bookmarking 'some day' projects.  Things you like the look of but never get round to actually making.  A few weeks ago I noticed something in the penultimate picture on this post of a blog I visit regularly.  It was not the subject of the post but it caught my eye, and I could think of several uses for it too.  Therein lies the issue for me, lots of lovely things to make but what on earth would I do with them or who would I gift them to too,  this fabric bucket was different.  I did a small amount of research before realising that having made a bag recently the construction was pretty similar, a lining, some handles and putting it all together I could make use of the pattern which is what I did.

You could make these any size to suit what you need to store in them or the size of the space they are going to stand in.  I have made two so far and have enough of the lining material to make two, possibly three, more.  It was great to use up some of the material I have in my very full drawer, I only needed to buy some interfacing which I used to give the bucket some stiffness.

To make your own you need to decide what height and width you want your bucket to be, the width will be the diameter of your circle, the base.  To work out the dimensions of your main piece you will need the circumference of your circle, remember your school maths?  The diameter x π will give you the circumference which is your width and the height you have already decided on.  The handles I cut 10cm wide and 22 cm long.  If you are using interfacing for a bit of stiffness then you will need two pieces your base circle and your main piece rectangle.

To make the handles fold the handles in half widthways and iron.  Open out and refold the edges to the middle, iron again.  Fold this in half, iron, pin and edge stitch.

Attach your interfacing to the wrong side of your two lining pieces, I used the iron on or fusible interfacing.  Pin, right sides together your main pieces for the outer and lining and sew.  Press the seams.  Pin the bases to the main pieces right sides together.  To make this easier I ironed creases into my base and side pieces by folding them in half and then into quarters, you can then use these marks to line the two pieces up.  When you sew the lining piece leave a gap about 15cm to enable you to turn the bucket the right way out.

Turn the lining right side out and pin the handles to the outside.  I used the creases that I had made earlier to line these up.  Put the lining inside the outer piece, which is wrong side out, so that you have right sides together.  Pin the pieces together, again using the creases to line them up.  Sew and press this seam.

Reach through the opening in the lining and carefully pull the bucket right side out.  Pin the gap in the lining together and stitch closed, and now you have a fabric bucket!

These are now storing our collection of small musical instruments and my yarny works in progress.  I have plans for more......

Joining in with Nicole over at Frontier Dreams for her weekly linkup of crafting, Keep Calm Craft On, head on over to see what others have been making......