Basket block.
My way of thinking ... baskets should have flowers in them.
I had a pretty floral that would have been perfect IF the opening at the top was a little larger. I could do that by eliminating the 2nd (top) row of triangles. So I sewed the bottom of the basket and the one row of triangles. Then using that section I measured it against a 9.5" square ruler to get the size I needed to re-draw the top portion to make the basket handle extend further and give me a larger area for the flowers.
I also wanted the flowers to drop down over the lip of the basket. I had to back the floral print with muslin. I then basted the modified top half of the basket to the bottom half - checked it for size and position, and I inserted two straight pins into the edge of the flowers where I was going to cut the floral piece and "drop it down". I then picked out my basting stitches in-between the two pins - cut my floral fabric and pulled it up and out of the way, then resewed the top and bottom together this time only the muslin backing was sewn to the bottom of the basket (the reason I needed the muslin backing was so that *something* would get seamed properly to the basket piece in the middle section and I didn't want a seam running through my flowers").
I then fussy cut around the portion of the flowers that I wanted to hang over the edge of the basket and FMQ the edges with clear poly thread.
My only mistake was that I should have removed the paper BEFORE I FMQ'ed the edges of the flowers - would have made getting the paper off MUCH easier.
Oh yeah, almost forgot. Last week I had to go to my LQS to pick up a bobbin case and found this "basket weave" batik. HOW PERFECT!! So this was (so far) my only purchase for this project. Everything else is from mostly scraps, some from stash FQ's.
Here's a close up of the basket. I really like the results. Depending on how this whole project shakes out ... I might add corner triangles to this piece so the basket sits straight up. I almost can't bear to set it sideways
