9.07.2009

My first fabric bucket...A beginner's lesson

I keep seeing really cool fabric buckets on Etsy and all over Google. I wanted to try my hand at it. For the record I just recently started sewing so don't expect too much.

Some of the tutorials have round bottoms, that's a little much for a newbie at sewing. Some of the tutorials use stitching some stuff inside out and turning. That made me nervous. I can juse see myself making a newbie bonehead mistake like sewing it shut. LOL
So I decided I would make a hybrid fabric bucket. I used my little girl's jeans that she grew out of and was very upset that she had to get rid of (we usually donate unstained clothes but she just could not part with these jeans). I grabbed a shirt that was getting  way too small on her and we decided that we could do it!
  
The first step was cutting a section just a little taller than I wanted to finished bucket to end up being. I kept the sides of the jeans as my side seams. I finished the bottom using this tutorial. (step 4)
Then I cut a section out of the t-shirt that had a butterfly on it. T-shirt fabric isn't stiff enough by itself so I ironed on some fuseable interfacing (I got at WalMart for $2). I sewed three sides straight and used the tutorial link above to make the bottom flat. :) Much easier than making a round bottom and trying to stitch all that on.
  
So that's what it looks like when you have your two buckets (one is the liner and the other is the outside of the bucket). 
Next you have to put the liner in and sew the bucket together. One of the tutorials for that showed you having to turn one inside out and stitching them and turning them back out. That intimidated me as a newbie so I decided to use Pippijoe's tutoral for sliding one inside the other and stitching them exactly as the finished project was going to look. That took the pressure off for me.
    
I liked the idea of having the butterfly in the back so when it's standing up you can see all the butterflies. My little girl was happy to help and thrilled that she has this cute little bucket for her vanity. It's not perfect but she is 7. She doesn't see flaws, she sees fun. :) So what do you think?

9 comments:

Vicki said...

Wow! I am amazed! What a cute bag! And how clever to reuse some of your daughter's clothes! Oh, you so ROCK!! Blessings to you!

Anonymous said...

So cute!! Bet she was excited! I have never seen one of these! Great idea!

Payne Holler Cards said...

now this is different! how neat to do this...may have to try this one LOL

Marie (MarieStamps.com) said...

I think you did fantastic! They look wonderful and very inspiring! TFS

mom2three said...

What a great project! I hope you always remember that your kids will love the time you took to make them something, they rarely look at the imperfections :) A terrific idea for those clothes they can't part with too!

Michelle said...

i think you did a fantastic job creating these pieces! TFS!
michelle

rebekahweckerly@gmail.com said...

too too cute!!

Erin Bassett said...

Great project!!

Turtle Taylor said...

So cute! I love these basekts too, but haven't tried to make any yet and I love your idea of using the clothes