12 inch Cherry Basket Block

Hello sweet friends.

Can you believe it is already April 1st.  Wow!

April is my month to be the queen bee in Sew Sweet Bee.

I saw a vintage quilt many years ago made out of Cherry Baskets and have always wanted to make one.   So I am going to ask my Sew Sweet Bee keepers to please make me this block.

In my previous post I share how to make the half square triangles for this block.

You will need

3  3 1/2 inch light squares

3  3/12 inch dark squares

Using a your quarter inch seam maker draw 2 lines on either side.

(Please see my previous post for the tutorial)

Sew along your lines.

Then using your ruler line up the seam to a 1/4 of an inch and cut in half diagonally.

You will end up with 6 half square triangles.

(Please see previous post on how I squared up my half square triangles to 2 7/8 inch blocks.)

Cut 3  3 1/4 inch dark squares,

Cut each square in half diagonally so that you will 6 triangles.

Sew 3 of your half square triangles together.

Sew one of your triangles to the top of unit 1

Sew 2 half square triangles together.

Sew a triangle to the top of unit 2

Sew one half square triangle to a triangle this will be unit 3.

You are going to sew unit 1 and 2 together like shown.

Sew unit 3 on like shown.

Sew your fourth triangle to end of the basket like this lay out.

This is what your basket will look like so far.

Cut 2  2 7/8 x 7 3/4 inch light strips.

Sew the remaining 2 triangles to end of the strips so they look like this.

Sew each strip to the right and the left sides of the basket.

Cut one 5 5/8 inch square.

Cut it in half diagonally. (you will only use 1)

Sew it to the bottom of the basket.

Cut 1  1 1/2  x 14 inch strip for your basket handle. (on the bias)

( I will cut mine a little longer just to make sure I have enough and trim )

Sew wrong sides together using 1/8 inch seam allowance.

Press your seam open on the back so that the raw edges do not show up on the the front.

Cut 1  10 1/2 inch light square.

Cut it in half diagonally. (you will only use 1)

This is going to be the top of your basket.

Pin the top of the handle 2 1/2 inches from the top point.

Pin you handle 2 1/2 inches in from the left and right corners.

Then I just laid out the rest of the handle to my desired liking.

I also used a glue stick (lightly) to help hold my handle in place.

I used a blind stitch on my sewing machine to sew my handle down.

You can also use a zig zag stitch or needle turn to sew you handle down.

It is what ever your heart desires.

Now it is time to sew the your top to your basket.

I folded the handle top in half and got a crease so I would know where the middle is.

Pin 1/4 inch down on the center of you handle block and place the pin at the bottom of the sewn triangle in the center of your basket like shown.

This will help you align the center and then you can pin outward and sew your handle block to your basket.

This is what your finished basket will look like.

It will measure 12 1/2 inches unfinished.

My goal was to get the center of the handle in middle of the right and left triangle.

As you can see on the left I miss measured.

Ooops!  That is what makes Happiness Homemade.

Hope you enjoyed making this block as much as I did.

Wishing you all a quilty week.

Hugs,

donna