Weekend amusements: what to do with a fat quarter

A little while ago I promised to post a quick and easy idea for something to make with a fat quarter, and as I sit here mourning the continued absence of my dear Rose, who is awaiting a part for her bobbin winder, I thought that I could spend my Saturday afternoon doing some imaginary sewing, just so that you can spend a spare half hour doing some actual stitching.

Basket liners galore and an orphan

I often find that I have a superfluity of fat quarters in my stash, as it is all too tempting to buy a little piece of a particularly nice fabric, and then find that it is rather small to do anything with, and the leftovers from dressmaking also tend to be little more than fat quarter size.

So what to do with those little bits of fabric: you could try this pattern and make a nice little bag like I did here, or you could try this pattern which is great fun (I was lucky to be in on the testing, and will show you the results another time), or you could buy this book which is all the rage in Blogland (yes, I admit it, I have succumbed and am already planning to be virtuous and use up my stash, of course, and there will be no special fabric purchases (well, not many, anyway)).

Or you could be thrift personified and make my handy-dandy basket liner and use up one of those fat quarters lurking guiltily in your stash. It's a nifty way of turning a square into a circle, and a very simple way to line baskets of all shapes without going to the trouble of paper patterns and stitching curves.

First take your basket - mine was a pretty standard bread basket approximately 34in/86cm in diameter, and 8in/20cm high (9in/23cm if you allow for the overlap), as you see in the picture. It doesn't matter if it is a bit smaller as the effect will just be more gathered.

Cut the fat quarter in half, crossways, at right angles to the selvedge. This gives you two rectangles approximately 9in/23cm high and 22in/56cm across.

Put the two pieces of fabric right sides together and stitch 1/2in/1cm seams along the short edges, which will make a tube ....

... which will look like this.

Pink the seams to avoid fraying ... and the top and bottom raw edges.

Iron the side seams open.

Fold the top and bottom raw edges over 1/2in/1cm and iron down.

Create a casing by stitching all the way round close to the raw edge, leaving a small gap of around 1in/2.5cm between starting and finishing, so that you can insert elastic or ribbon for gathering.

For a permanent gather you can use elastic, but this makes the gather permanent, and the liner not so easy to iron if you wash it.

To get round this I just use string in the bottom casing - thread it through, pull tight ...

and tie in a bow underneath ...

... and a pretty ribbon in the top casing. These can be removed for washing and ironing.

So there you are - half an hour's fun and prettification of a boring basket.

Squared the circle

I, of course, am machine-less, and can only dream of such things, but I have found solace in sock knitting for an orphan.

Lonely orphan and friend in the making

Have a good weekend - and come back for my giveaway early next week: six, yes, six prizes to be won!