Happy Thanksgiving and a French Bread Basket for the Occasion

This past month has been a mess!  Four kids and myself caught the worse respiratory infection and just kept spreading it back and forth between each other for weeks, despite quarantine efforts!  Needless to say, I am WAY behind for the holidays.  I barely got my turkey in it's Cider-Brine in time for the big day before I started on this basket project.

We are also celebrating mine and my father's birthday (same day of course cause things just have to be crazy like that in my life), and Thanksgiving in two consecutive days this week. 


It's nuts I tell you and there are many projects almost ready to reveal after Turkey Day, but here's one I did manage to finish in a quick hour day before we headed to my brothers house to eat a years worth of food in one day!  I wanted to make a grey stained tray for my table display, but.... well... see the story above.  But you can check out my Facebook page here for the very simple instructions on how to make and use your own homemade grey stain.  More than a few people went wild over it.

Back to the basket tutorial now.  I picked up this basket at Hobby Lobby for $3 a few weeks ago.  I put a coat of Provincial stain by MinWax that I picked up at Amazon.com.

Took a couple of days for that to dry because it was rather sticky when I finished.  Afterwards, I took a piece of a leftover antique French hemp sack that I had and I cut an oval that I fitted inside the basket first and then cut around the basket leaving a 4 inch "hem line".

Turn your edges inward about 1/2, fire up the iron and put iron-on hem tape around the edges.  You can also use Aleene's Fabric Fusion Tape for this.  It's a press and peel tape.  The stuff seriously saved my butt this past Halloween with the kids costumes, lol!

Now, here comes the fun part.  You need for this:

Upholstery Needle or a seriously thick sewing needle

Twine - or something similar

Place a weight in the middle of the basket to hold your fabric down and in place while you sew.  You can also use clothes pins to adhere the fabric to the edge of the basket as you sewing, while removing them as you go around.

• Start at one end and begin sewing the fabric into the basket with the twine.  Your fabric should just come over the "lip" of the basket.
• Leave at least 5 inches of twine hanging free on the first stitch.  You will need this to "tie" it off at the end.
• You will need to gather fabric as you sew if you're using a basket with more oval or circular.
• Your stitches should be between 1 and 1 1/2 inches apart except for the ends of more circular baskets.  They will be about 1/2 to 1 inch apart.
• Straight edges need only to gather near the corners.

Keep working around your basket until you have come full circle.... or square.  Hopefully you managed to finish yours without stabbing yourself 4 or 5 times with the upholstery needle.  Dang that thing leaves big holes in your skin!

Your last outward stitch is going to be the one you use to tie it off with the 5 inch piece you left hanging at the beginning.  By the way, do NOT think this is suppose to look perfect.  Your stitches should be a bit uneven; even your gathers should too.

Think - "I found this in a French Barn" look!

After stabbing yourself a few times and backing out of stitches a few times too, you should have a pretty cook bread basket!

So, A Very Happy Thanksgiving to all of you out there this week.  Please be safe and love your families well.  Remember those who have less and help when you can.  God Blesses you for it and it creates a lot of good karma as well.  

Don't make too much fun of Aunt Marma and Uncle Ted - they were once young too and one day you're gonna be old and weird just like them.  Remember that karma thing? 

Please oh please remember NOT to overstuff the turkey and send it exploding in Grandma's oven either.  I nearly did it at a friends house one year so that's why I'm warning you.

Oh, can I please remind you that you do not need all 15 desserts on one plate that your family brought and you're feeling guilty that you gotta try them all!  Remember  all overstuff turkeys explode!

Love you folks!

Vintage Resurrections