Top 10 Easy & Colorful Holiday Gift Ideas–#9 Garden Preserves Basket

This charming gift idea is from the Locking Loops book. It’s a basket to hold a home-made jar of preserves, anything you’ve canned, or a special item you’ve bought. If you’re like me, you’ve probably been too busy this year for canning, but you can buy some at a local farmer’s market or grocery store. The basket uses extra swatches of fabric and 1/2″w pre-cut cotton muslin strips with an optional floral accent. This is probably the most time intensive project on this list (about two or three evenings while watching TV and 2-3 hours in an afternoon) , but there is still time. It’s 10 1/2″high and about 4 1/2″wide and is designed for a pint jar.

 #9 Garden Preserves Basket

Garden Preserves Basket
Garden Preserves Basket

Locker hooked with cotton fabric on 5-mesh canvas. Edges framed with rayon ribbon. NOTE: Tear or cut strips of fabric 1/2″w. I used pre-cut muslin and tore strips of extra cotton swatches I had. The pattern and illustrated instructions can be found in the Locking Loops book. If you’d like to see how to locker hook a basket, you can view the video tutorial for locker hooking a basket at Color Crazy.

Fabric requirements for this design:

1/8 yd or 10yds of strips of ivory cotton muslin, 1/4 yd or 20 yds of strips of light printed fabric, 1/3 yard or 30 yds of strips of the beige fabric.

9 yds of amber colored rayon ribbon or seam binding

Easy to make:

1. Cut 3 pieces of 5-mesh canvas. Body: 60 squares x 36. Bottom: 21 x 21, Handle: 77 x 10. Fold over 3 squares on body & bottom, 2 squares on handle by folding a row in half.

2.  You’ll need to locker hook body by working in the round, overlapping by 4 squares, locker hook pieces by using different stripes of fabric strips. You can use holiday colors or create your own look if you prefer. Locker hook 3 rows on top of body piece slightly longer loops for an accent. Sew in any tails of fabric strips. Frame handle and top of basket body. Stitch bottom to body and handle to body. Use a few drops of glue to secure handle if needed.

3. Optional: attach floral accent, tie a ribbon on the handle and make a bow, or just attach a nice card.