One Hour Basket with Renaissance Ribbons

As promised last week, I'm back to explain how I used my second Renaissance Ribbons velvet ribbon. 

I learnt from the bags I made last week, and decided to try a different way to get the most out of my black and red velvet ribbon from Stitch Witches.  

I pulled out my One Hour Basket pattern from many years ago, and made a few changes to it to ensure that I showed off my velvet ribbon to maximum effect.  (The One Hour Basket pattern used to be free, but now it's for sale on Etsy.)

I cut my Soft and Stable slightly deeper than the original pattern because I knew I wanted to see ALL of the velvet ribbon on the side of the basket. I put a strip of black quilting cotton at the base of the Soft and Stable so my velvet ribbon wasn't on the base of the basket..  

I wanted the 1.5" bird ribbon to be at the top of my basket, but I needed to allow a seam allowance at the top, so I sewed another piece of quilting cotton to the top of the Soft and Stable.  

I used a 70 needle and monofilament when I attached the bird ribbon to the Soft and Stable.

So I mucked around for 3.5 hours making a one hour basket.  But good things take time, and I'm very happy with this basket.  I think it show the velvet ribbon beautifully, and I only had 7" of ribbon left over.  I might even find a use for that yet.  

So here's my little family of bags made from Renaissance Ribbons velvet ribbons.  The bags from last week fit perfectly inside the One Hour Basket to demonstrate the relative sizes.  

Now it's time for the Peacock Party.  Feel free to link up a recent blog post below.

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One Hour Baskets

When my mum was here for Easter she made two One Hour Baskets. I've already  shown you the first one which was for me:

but I haven't shown you the second one, which is for my 6 year old niece, Jorja. Fortunately I had these pink fabrics in my stash. They had come in a mystery box I purchased through Craftsy last year, and they were just right for a dainty little girl.

If you'd like to make one of these baskets, got to Kelby Sews and follow her pattern. It's free!

One of my lovely followers. Jeanette from Sydney, Australia, liked the idea so much that she stepped out of her comfort zone and bought some bright fabrics for her One Hour Basket. Isn't Jeanette's lovely too, and what about the view from her apartment!

I love that yellow on the inside of the basket - it's so sunny. For the Aussies and Kiwis out there, Jeanette got her fabrics at Spotlight.

Sydney has been having some terrible weather this week. I've seen TV reports showing huge waves in the harbour which they really aren't used to. We're built of tough stuff here in Wellington, and we get winds up to 130 kph at least once or twice a year. It was very strange to see waves crashing across the roads in Sydney Harbour. I hope everyone there is OK and the weather has calmed down now.

I'm linking up with Sew Cute Tuesday.

Happy Easter

I hope you're all enjoying an Easter break. We're having a lovely time with my mum and dad here for five days.

Yesterday we took a trip up the Kapiti Coast and went to Te Horo. It's a very stony beach with lots of driftwood, but funnily enough just 10 kms down the road there's another beach with beautiful white sand. I think the other beach is protected by Kapiti Island so there's less debris washed ashore.

me and mum

We also went to Ruth Pretty's Cooking School for coffee and cake. I love Ruth's Christmas cake, and fortunately they were still selling it by the slice in their garden cafe shop. We sat in the little green house for morning tea.

see the tea cosy they use!

Of course there's been plenty of sewing going on too.

What you see above turned into a one hour basket - yes, I followed the trend and got mum to whip one up based on the pattern by Kelby Sews. I bought some Soft and Stable on Wednesday so we used some of that for the stiffening.

Here's what it looks like now:

Mum bought me down some more of the beautiful California wool because I'm going to make a second ripple blanket. The second one will be slightly smaller than the first, and I will use it in the lounge on winter nights. We do have a heater, but I feel the cold more than the rest of the family. The second blanket will be more scrappy, incorporating all the remains from the first blanket, plus a few new wild colours called Circus and Macaw which you can see above.

Here's our progress to date and it's only Easter Sunday morning. Mum and Dad don't leave until Wednesday afternoon so there's plenty more sewing time yet.

In fact I can hear my machine whirring now because mum is making a second one hour basket for my niece, her granddaughter. I'll be sure to post a photo once it's finished.