Buttercup

The little baskets in this quilt were made using some charm squares from Moda's Buttercup. The colours are very delicate and feminine.  The basket handles were sewn on last year  and it has gradually been put together, with the borders added this weekend.   Now to prepare it for quilting, with another UFO taken off the pile.

 I used Brandie's tutorial given on ABC at
      http://abrandiecreation.blogspot.com.au/2011/08/tiny-basket-tutorial.html
and
      http://abrandiecreation.blogspot.com.au/2011/08/tiny-basket-tutorial_16.html
to learn how to make the baskets.  When it came to putting the quilt together I couldn't face all those tiny cornerstones so this is what I did.

I decided to vary the widths of the sashings.  I took four blocks - two plain and 2 baskets - and joined them into groups of four with 1/2" sashing.
I took four groups of four and used  3/4" sashing to turn them into groups of 16.
I took four groups of sixteen and used 1" sashing to turn them into groups of 64.
I finally took four groups of 64 (or part thereof) and used 11/4" sashing to turn them into groups of  (well, you calculate it !) You can see this final wider sashing better in the photo below,  where the sashings cross each other in the bottom half of the quilt.

I alternated two different fabrics for the sashing,  In retrospect it might have been better if they were not quite so close in colour.

Another bit of a variation I made was to occasionally replace the cream background with a co-ordinating colour from the same range, occasionally as the background to a handle and sometimes in place of the cream diamond. It helped break up the regularity.

I was also lucky enough to have had a little bias binding maker gadget from the quilt shop to turn out beautifully regular bias binding  for me.  Needle turning to make the handles is not my forte !

So, thanks Brandie for showing us how to make the baskets.