Homemade fabric bread basket - basic tutorial

As Christmas is just around the corner, I figured it was time to check how up to date the Amazon wishlists were. This makes life so much easier for us when family ask what we'd like. 

The idea of these commercial gift registries are a little contentious, even within my own family. My brother would rather go off-list, which is fine, but we really like to have a clue what on earth he would appreciate. I've tried to be spontaneous, believe me, I have, but I'm just not cut out to buy gifts of my own choosing for someone with such different interests and tastes to my own. In fact I even struggle to buy for my own husband, and I therefore assume everyone is the same as me, because I'm pretty normal. So it's not that we're presumptuous, we'd just rather that if someone's going to spend their hard earned money on us, that it's something we'll actually get plenty of use out of.

As I scrolled through my own list, I'd forgotten that dear husband had thoughtfully added lots to my list that he thought I'd like. Oh, so perhaps other people are capable of choosing suitable gifts. One of the items was this gorgeous fabric bread bag from Stelton.

Me being me though, decided that £20 was far too dear for a bread bag and that I could probably make one myself. So I did.

Luckily I had some natural linen left over from a purse project as well as some bright linen I'd bought from IKEA a while back. I'd originally planned to make a round-bottomed bag, as with the Steltons, but decided on an easier square bottom style. In hindsight, I think the round bottom would look better, so I'll probably give that a go another time, but for now, I'll leave you with some instructions for a super-easy DIY fabric bread bag.

You will need: 

Heavy fabric in coordinating colours 

Thread

Scissors/Roller Cutter & Mat

Measure

Sewing machine 

I started with two pieces of fabric that were approximately 27cm x 62cm. This gave me a bag with a diameter of about 20cm (8"), plenty big enough for 8-10 bread rolls, or half a standard 800 sliced loaf. The first thing I did was to sew the short ends together (with right sides together) for each of the pieces, so that you have two separate tubes.

Then, with the tubes still inside out, sew across the bottom of each tube. You will then start to have the makings of a couple of basket shapes, so all you need to do now is to sew a couple of lines perpendicular to the bottom line and you will have the inside and outside of your reversible bread basket. You can now cut the corners off to reduce the bulk inside the basket.

The next bit is the most complicated part, but it's still really straight forward: Take one of the bag shapes and turn inside out (or vice versa if you still have them both inside out), then take the bag that is the right side out and put it inside the bag that is wrong side out. Are you still following? So you should now have both bags together and can only see the wrong sides of the fabric on both the outside and inside.

With the top edges together, sew around the top of the bag, but leave a gap of a few inches (or should that be 8 centimetres?!). You can then turn the bags the right way around and finally sew a topstitch which will also seal the final bit of the top edge. Capiche?

Roll the edge down to give the bag a little more structure and show off the lovely coordinating fabric that you have chosen for your basket, then fill with bread products and sit back and admire your hard work.

Of course, you don't actually have to use it for bread. Fabric storage baskets are really popular at the moment and you can make them in whatever size suits your needs. They can be used to store toys, odds and ends in the kitchen, craft area, or even bathroom, and if it gets dirty, just pop it in the washing machine.