A Basket Makeover

Learn how to sew a fabric basket liner to custom fit any wicker basket.

As you know, I’ve been slowly working on the nursery. I saw this basket at a thrift store for $1…

…and knew it would be perfect for holding diapers and wipes. What you can’t tell from the pictures is that it’s actually a pretty large basket. It’s about 20 inches across! I could totally see the potential hiding behind the tacky gold paint, so I brought it home with me. And…

…tah dah! New, cute basket to keep diapers within easy reach. Yay!

First step was to spray paint it. I used Krylon’s Ivy Leaf and love the color. It took a whole can to get good coverage, but like I said, it’s a pretty big basket.

Then I made a basket liner out of a nice, thick piece of white woven fabric I’ve had in my stash for years.

I read a tutorial that suggested draping the fabric onto the outside of the basket and pinning it all to give you the shape you need. Since my basket has sloping sides, I thought this sounded easier than trying to get the right angles and sew several pieces together.

So I turned my basket upside down and pinned the fabric tight around the corners. I forgot to take a picture when I was making the actual basket, but here’s a little demonstration of how it’s done:

Then I sewed where the pins were, which left little triangular flaps. I cut those off. I tested the fit inside my basket and realized that I needed to sew the corner seams just a smidge tighter. Next I trimmed around the opening part to get an even edge. Make sure you leave lots of room for it to fold around the basket and still have room for a casing for the elastic. I used elastic because it needed to hug the curves of my basket and I wanted it to stay snug. If you are making a liner for a square container, you don’t really need elastic.

Because my basket had handles, I had to make holes for them. I just cut the shape I wanted and used double fold bias tape to finish it off. You want to do this before you finish the top edge so that the bias tape can be tucked inside the final top edge’s seam.

Then I made the casing to hold the elastic. When I got to the holes for the handles, I just secured the elastic with a few stitches and strung the lace across the hole to tie it and keep it tight.

I am happy with this little project. I already had the spray paint, fabric and lace, so the total cost was just $1. Yay! Even if I had to buy the paint and fabric, it still would have only been around $5. Not bad!