Tumbling Baskets

 

 I mentioned that I was doing something new and while this might not look new to you, since it is a very old pattern, I think I did something new with it.

I wanted to take the common flower basket and see if I could design my own block with it and this is what I've come up with.

I've drawn off the blocks on graph paper and I'll have lots of space for applique flower and stems once it starts going together.

 

Here's the basic layout.  

I'm using all scraps, white-on-white, cream-on-cream, and reds.

The background strips are from left over quilt backing projects, All cut in 2 1/2 inch strips.

The basket is made using a half-square triangle technique.  There are several techniques "out there" that you can use to get these triangles.

Assemble the basket as shown.

Here's my input that makes it a little different.

The first outside border strip is added to the bottom, however, don't sew it all the way across.  Stop sewing about half-way across.  If you sew it all the way across, you have to make a Y-seam, and this just seemed much easier to me.

Now add the outside strips in the order shown.

At this point, you can now finish sewing the first strip on.  No Y-seams. 

I like the way the blocks now match up and it will give me lots of applique and quilting areas.  I think if you add another boarder of the outside strips, but in color, it will also frame it up very nicely for another look.  I also like the play on the background color, using all the various scraps I had (harder to see in the pictures).