Easy Peasy Fabric Bucket and Folded Bottom Tutorial

When I first started sewing I made a fabric bucket for scraps as I sewed. A few weeks ago, my husband was putting out the garbage and I said there were some fabric scraps my machine, if he could toss them...

Bet you can guess what he did.. Yup, instead of emptying it out the whole bucket was thrown out.

So today, I decided I needed a new bucket.. I wanted to try out something new.. and then got the smart idea of using a placemat that I've had in my fabric stash for a while.

Turned out to be the easest thing I've sewed.. two stitch lines.

And what I liked even better.. the method I used for the bottom was the one type of bag from the ikat  bag series that I hadn't done (Pleated or Folded bottom bag) So I learnt something new.

I somehow managed to get to tutorial on a bag with this kind of bottom, but it was in another language. I managed to figure out the steps via the photos.  Here's what I did..

Take the placemat  and fold the the long side  righ sides together to have a pleat like so..

Now, I just guessed at the size of the fold.. My fold was a bit too big.. the side detail ended up wider than the front!

Clipping that down, sew down the two sides.

 

 

I used white thread so the stitches could be seen.. 

 



 

And that's it!  Turn it right side out

Now of course if you don't use a placemat, you'll have raw edges on the top, so either hem those down at the beginning or make a lining the same way and assemble like a bag..

The placemat is great though. Nice and sturdy, no interfacing needed.

In action



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