How to Make DIY Fabric Braided Baskets

About two years ago, I came across a YouTube video showing how to make braided baskets with fabric strips. It’s been a project that I have wanted to do since then, and last fall, I used the technique to make a braided tree skirt and coasters. A couple of weeks ago, I made several baskets. The first one was small and you saw a sneak picture of it in my last blog post.

The first basket I made is the perfect size to hold embroidery thread, small scissors, and a needles.

I decided to make some baskets for my daughters as Easter gifts. Immediately, the older daughter put her small stuffed dogs into the basket, and the younger daughter put her favorite doll into her basket. As you can see in the middle pictures, I gave Emma her basket before I put the handle on it, and then put the handle on it the next day.

These baskets were great gifts! The girls have used them to gather flowers and nuts on nature walks. And Ellie even has used hers to carry stones and dirt from the yard to the deck. Thank goodness everything I make for them is washable!

As I was putting all of the fabric away, I went ahead and tore strips of fabric to make the next basket and had fun taking some photos with blossoms from a tree in our yard with the completed first basket and the rolled strips of fabric for the next basket.

Okay, enough with the photos. Instead of recording my own video, I thought that I would share with you how I learned to make the baskets:

I don’t have enough scraps saved to make baskets like she does so I used new fabric torn into 1” strips. The solid cotton fabric that I used for the off-white baskets was Kona Cotton 57" PFD Bleach White available at fabric.com. I like using wider—57” instead of 44”— fabric so that my strips are longer (I tear across the fabric from selvage to selvage), but any width of fabric works. And as you can see in the video, she uses a variety of sizes of scraps. The small finished basket required six 1” strips of the 57” wide fabric. The next basket, I will be making will use 18 strips of fabric, and it will be slightly larger than the baskets that I made for the girls. I have the fabric braided and ready to sew…I will be selling the next basket as soon as it’s finished. I will send out an email to let you know so that you have a chance to purchase it if you don’t plan to make one (or several) for yourself.

Happy basket making! And, as always, let me know if you have any questions and tag me on Instagram #hearthsidecomforts with photos of the baskets you make.

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