The little fleece basket

What is it about the holidays that beckons us to create?  I'm gonna go out on a limb here and say it's so darn cold outside, what else is there to do?  Just kidding.

What paper crafter do you know that isn't creating something at any given time during the week?  It's not just "paper" crafters either, it's crafters in general.  They are drawn to the hand-made item. 

The past week I've been sucked into a blogger warp, jumping from blog to blog absorbing all of the awesome ideas I'd like to incorporate into my own hand-made art.   So many ideas, so few hours in the day. 

For the past year (possibly longer) I've been seeing more and more stitched felt and fabric pieces.  Here I've tried my own hand at creating just that.  I call it, The little fleece basket. 

This little beauty was created with my Big Shot die and the 'Basket and Blooms' Bigz die (which I should add is exclusive to SU!).  The Bigz dies are designed to cut through fabrics and other non-paper products.

So, off I went to the fabric store to pick up my brown floss I so deseprately need for the project in my preivous post, knowing all to well once inside I'd be wandering the store checking out fabric.  Proudly I exited the store with only four items to purchase (way below my regular costly fabric sprees).

Let's cut to the chase (I need to hit car pool soon..it's so cold outside....don't want my kiddos freeze).

To create these little baskets yourself, simply run the die through the Big Shot and stitch it up.  Fleeced was used here, but I've used felt before and it works just as well (just not as soft).

As mentioned before, I am not the best at sewing, so these babies were stitched along the sides using some sort of stitch that, well, keeps the sides together.  Goodness, there's a name for it...it's just eluding me (gotta get the kids!!!).

My original idea was to just run a quick stictch along the sides with the sewing maching and use my pinking shears to make a decorative edge.  It doens't get much easier than that.  Once I started stiching the outside I blew off the pinking shears.  The dog was staring at me and I lost my train of thought...really. 

Check out the image on the bottom right. 

The red with the notches is actually the base die cut of the basket.  I layered the other pieces like this to show you how easily it is to make a flower.  I'll do more later (gotta get the kids)!

That white circle on top of the green circle, as well as the green leaves are the new Stitched Felt "Sweet Pea" SU! will be carrying in the Occasion Mini coming out in January.  Yeah, LOTS of goodies in there. 

OK..I'm outta here.  Try your hand at this...they're fun!

Toodles.

Melanie