Easter baskets!

About the time I was contemplating how to make Easter baskets for the girls this year, I saw a tutorial on Mamma's Time to Create/Diary of a Flutter Kat.  Why reinvent the wheel?  Sure I could probably figure something out, but Kat had done all the work for me.  So, I used Kat's excellent tutorial to make our Easter baskets.

This is how they turned out:

I followed Kat's instructions with the following exceptions: I used a much heavier interfacing (Peltex) so my baskets would be stiffer, and on the final basket I tried to quilt it before assembly.

The Peltex did make my baskets stiffer and more sturdy, but it also made them a lot harder to turn right side out when the time came in the instructions.  I really struggled with the third basket's handle (it took me almost 30 minutes!), but the fabric was also a little less stretchy than the others.  I also topstitched two lines of stitching around all the edges, just to make it lie flatter.

To make the 3rd basket look quilted, I added an extra step in the very beginning.  I placed one exterior rectangle on my Peltex rectangle (right side up), pinned in place, and quilted a grid (I actually marked the grid directly on the opposite side of the Peltex because no one is going to see it).  I was lazy and just wanted to use my walking foot, thus the grid instead of something more festive.  I repeated for the other exterior rectangle and Peltex rectangle.  THEN, I started with Kat's instructions (Step 1) to layer the interfacing and exterior fabric's together.  I'm sure with a different fabric choice, the results would have been amazing.

given the pattern of the fabric, you can barely see the grid I quilted

Here are the baskets again, all ready to go: