bicycle bucket tutorial

Just want to say thank you to Vanessa from V & Co. and all her wonderful readers!  Thanks for letting me be your guest today. 

Ready for a fun summertime project?

My husband and I were doing some tune ups on my daughter's bike earlier this spring - you know, new tires, paint the handlebars, fix the seat, fun stuff. So, when we were out tire shopping I saw the cute bike baskets at the store. I was like "oh, we have to get her a basket, it would be so fun" and he's like "you should just make one". So here we go!

Materials:

2 fat quarters of coordinating prints

stiff double side fusible interfacing (I used Peltex 72F which I found at Walmart)
5 inch piece of 3/4" wide velcro
scrap of medium weight fusible interfacing
thread, pins, etc.
Pattern piece

Cut your materials:
From exterior fabric cut one piece 8.5" wide by 7" tall, one piece 12" long by 7" tall and one piece from the pattern (it's the bottom of the bucket - use the solid line).  Cut the same size pieces from the lining fabric.

For the tab that attaches the bucket to the bike handle bars cut a 6" wide by 11.5" tall piece from the lining material and cut one piece 21.5" wide by 4.5" tall for the top binding of the bucket.

From the double sided fusible interfacing cut one piece 7.5" wide by 6" tall, one piece 11" long by 6" tall and one piece from the pattern following the dotted line.

{All seam allowances 1/2" unless otherwise noted}

Sew the exterior and lining:

Place the short rectangle (8.5" wide by 7" tall piece) RIGHT sides facing to the bottom bucket piece.  Sew.

Open up the piece you just sewed and take the long remaining rectangle, find the center (should be at 6") and pin it to the center of the curved bottom bucket piece. 

Starting from the pin sew following the curve of the bottom bucket piece, adjusting as you go. 

When you reach the seam that joins the bottom bucket piece and the short rectangle, stop with the needle down and lift presser foot, rotate the pieces so that the two rectangles are facing RIGHT sides together.  Put presser foot back down and continue sewing.  Go back to where you started in the middle of the curve and sew the remaining side.  {When lifting the presser foot and rotating the pieces so that they align, it might feel and look kind of wrong or weird, but I promise they'll line up and look great when you turn it right side out.}

Clip curve.  Turn RIGHT side out.  Repeat same process for lining pieces.

Assemble the bucket:

Take the double sided fusible interfacing pieces and place them into the exterior of the bucket.

Then place the lining into the bucket.

Press on all sides (exterior and lining and bottom) of the bucket to fuse in place.  Set aside.

Make the handle bar attachment:

Take the 11.5" tall by 6" wide piece and fuse on a piece of medium weight interfacing. 

Fold in half lengthwise RIGHT sides together.  Sew along all open sides leaving a 2" opening in the bottom for turning.  Clip corners, turn right side out. 

Topstitch around entire piece. 

Now take one side of the velcro, sew into place along one of the short edges. 

Take the remaining piece of velcro and sew into place on the other end and opposite side you just sewed the first piece of velcro on (as pictured above).

**Now here is where you could do it differently, I sewed this handle bar attachment onto the bucket on this next step, but you could also hold off and sew it on as the very last step, your choice.

Sew attachment to bucket:

Pin the handle bar attachment to the bucket about 2-3" from the top.  Sew two straight lines completely across the attachment piece about 3/4" apart. 

Finishing with the binding:

Now take the binding strip and press it in half lengthwise, open, and press raw edges to the center.  If you've ever done quilt binding, we're going to finish this the same way. 

Unfold the binding strip, pin in place aligning raw edges at the back (center) of the bucket.  Start sewing along the crease towards the edge of the bucket (where red arrow is pointing) and continue around to the other edge. 

It should look like this now:

Trim the binding piece so that they overlap by 1/2" (see tiny red arrows above). 

Now grab the bucket and give it a squish and place the binding 'tails' RIGHT sides together.  Sew using a 1/4" seam allowance. 

Now un-squish the bucket and sew the remaining part of the binding closed, again along the crease. 

Flip the binding over the top and in towards the lining.  Topstitch along exterior close to the seam.  Press!!!

That's it, one complete bicycle bucket ready for a trip to the park. Have fun!

Don't forget about the boys!! 

Just wanted to add that if you're looking into different bike basket options, Christie from A Lemon Squeezy Home has a couple cute tutorials as well:  Vintage Inspired or her Boy's Basket. 


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