I wanted to “make” our Easter baskets, but I wanted something a bit unconventional and personalized.  I hunted through Target, Michael’s, and JoAnne’s, searching for what I wanted.  I thought about decorating milk crates, but those couldn’t be stacked and knew we had no room to store them.  Then I found these perfect metal woven baskets at Michael’s!  Best selling point?  Michael’s was having a 50% off all baskets sale!  SOLD.  I then went to JoAnne’s to get some Easter fabric to weave through the metal to give it a cute personalized look.  This idea works great with Easter baskets, but you could use it for ANY basket in any theme for any purpose.

Materials:

• Metal woven baskets.
• Fabric
• Thread
• Fabric glue/tape

Directions:

1. Collect your materials.  Like I mentioned, I got the baskets at Michael’s and the fabric at JoAnne’s.  The amount of material you need is dependent on how many baskets you are making, as well as their size.  For my 4 baskets, I bought a quarter of a yard of seven different fabrics and had fabric leftover.  To glue the fabric onto the basket, I highly recommend using fabric tape instead of glue or hand stitching.  It works like double sided tape and was really quick.
2. Cut your fabric.  You want your strips to pretty much fill in the entire empty space in your basket, so your strips will vary in size based on your basket.  For me, the metal bars were spaced an inch apart, so I cut 2.5 inch strips, giving me a quarter inch on both sides for my seam.  If you can, fleece or something naturally double sided and non-fraying would make this project go WAY faster and would give the basket a warm/comfy vibe.  Luckily my fabric wrapped around my basket perfectly so I didn’t have to cut it lengthwise at all, however if your basket is a different size you may have to either cut it shorter or sew more on the end.  It is ok if the fabric overlaps a bit around the basket because that can be easily hidden, so I would much rather make them too long than too short.
3. Sew your strip together.  I personally didn’t want to see the seam, so I sewed my strip inside out.  If you don’t mind a seam, you could easily tuck in the edges and sew it right side out.  I sewed one end and the entire side together inside out.  You shouldn’t be able to see the thread so you don’t need to find a color that perfectly matches.
4. Turn your strip right side out.  This part took literally FOREVER, yet I felt it was worth it because it gave it a crisper look than seeing the seam (plus, I am not the straightest sewer in the entire world).  Through the open end, I slowly pulled the right side out fabric through.  Each strip took me roughly 20 minutes to completely flip, and it hurt my fingers so I could only do a few a day.

   

5. Sew the edge shut.  Once I finally had all my strips right side out, I tucked the rough edges inward and sewed the edge shut.  It is OK if you see this thread, it will be hidden.
6. Iron strips flat.  I am horrible at ironing my sewing projects.  Mostly because I am lazy.  However, after turning these strips right side out and storing them in a pile, they were very wrinkled and I wanted a crisp look.  On my ironing board I laid the strip so the seam was on the side and then ironed flat.  Follow ironing temperature and instructions based on the fabric you chose.

   

7. Weave the strips of fabric through your basket.  The fun part!  I decided which order I wanted the strips on each basket, and then weaved each one through the bars, weaving the fabric over and under each metal bar and alternating each strip so it looked weaved.  I had my ends all over the basket, but if your basket will have a natural back you can finish all your ends at the back so they are unseen.  I layered my visible seam behind my un-visible seam to hide it.  If your ends overlap, continue weaving the same pattern over the back of the strip.  Once you are done, give the basket a good once over to make sure you didn’t skip a bar and mess up the pattern.
8. Tack the ends.  I felt the glue strips worked the easiest because it was like double sided tape.  I cut a strip of the glue strip the same width of my fabric strip.  Then I pulled the fabric strip tight, and placed the glue on the back end of my fabric strip.  Then I pressed the end against the fabric in front of it and squeezed it for a few seconds to make sure the tape held.  Then I did the same to the front edge of the strip.  I continued doing this with all of the strips until the basket was finished.  You could also use fabric glue and put a dot on each end instead of a strip of tape.  You could also hand stitch it, but I thought that would take me forever and it probably wouldn’t look as crisp.
9. Enjoy!  Fill your baskets with whatever you want!  I choose fake grass and Easter eggs.