Refashion for Usefullness

While not a clothes refashion, it is something super useful that I made out of something I had no use for.  Technically I did this on June 30, but that is practically July, and for some reason I forgot to share.  My mother saves sheets and clothes she is getting rid of for me to sort through and see if I want to take anything for my stash.  She had a fitted sheet with a pretty leaf pattern that I figured I could do something with.  Fitted sheets can be a pain to use, but I was up for the challenge.

She also had a real goodie for me.  A laundry tower.  Dunno what it is actually called, but it is a plastic frame, on wheels no less, from which hang three fabric laundry baskets.  More like fabric slings with sides.  Anyway, it was free, she wasn't going to use it anymore, and I could use the space in my bedroom.  I had a motley collection of laundry baskets at that point.  Only one problem.  She still had only one of the original fabric baskets.

The design was simple enough, so I took it with thanks and decided to just make two more.  The original design had the channels along the sides of the basked (where it hangs on the frame) sewn shut, so to get the basket off you have to take the frame apart.  I put that one on the bottom.  When I made the two new ones I left the channels unfinished so I could add some sort of fastening so I could take them down if I needed to.  Right now the fastening is safety pins.

Random fitted sheet and a need for fabric laundry baskets = perfect timing.  Obviously this sheet had a destiny.  Too bad it didn't realize that.  I started by seam-ripping the corner seams so the fabric would lay flatter.  I measured the existing basket as it hung to get dimensions for my new ones.  Then I laid out the sheet on the floor to cut out the pieces.  The fabric was a pain to work with.  I don't know how they applied that pretty design to the fabric, but it made it very difficult to pin through.  I stopped counting how many times I stabbed myself because I needed to put more force behind the pins and I ended up pushing through quite suddenly.  Below is a pic in progress.

The sewing was annoying too.  The bottom of the curve was the worst part, both pinning and sewing, but I got through it.  I was determined to have my laundry baskets.  All told it took a couple of hours between measuring, cutting, pinning, and sewing.  Very gratifying to have it finally done.  Since I left the original basket they don't all match.  But I'm fine with that.  Here is the finished product in my kindof messy room.

Can you tell which was the original?  Hehe.  And it was free!  I still have some of the sheet left, but like they say about childbirth, I think I will wait until I can't remember how painful it was to work with before using it for any more projects.  Also on my blog here