These baskets are made out of freestanding lace. Not only are they elegant and pretty, but they’re also functional! Fill with colorful grass and Easter treats, or embroider them for flower girls and table center- pieces for wedding and anniversary celebrations

When you download the zipped file, you’ll find three embroidery files: one side, one handle, and one rectangular bottom design. Begin by hooping a piece of heavy weight, water soluble stabilizer. We use Sulky Ultra Solvy.

Because lace is two sided, we want the same thread in the bobbin as in the top.
This means that we have wound our bobbins with 40 weight, rayon thread - the same thread as we are using in the top.

Embroider the designs. We embroider lace designs with a size 11 sharp needle.
A sharp needle works better than a universal or ballpoint needle. A sharp needle pierces the stabilizer cleanly, whereas a universal or ballpoint needle can puncture or tear the stabilizer.

To have the pieces to make one basket, embroider one rectangular bottom piece, one handle, and two of the side pieces.

After you have finished the embroidery, trim the excess stabilizer away.

Trace the shape of the side piece onto cardboard. If you don’t have any cardboard handy, a cereal box will do the trick. Trace the shape twice.

Cut out the shapes. You can set the pieces aside; you’ll use them later to help shape and mold the basket.

Soak the stabilizer away for about ten minutes in water that is hot from the tap.
Usually we recommend that you soak the lace a little longer, but for this particular project, soak it a little less.
We want some of the stabilizer to remain behind to act as a stiffener.

Blot the pieces with a paper towel to remove excess moisture, then allow to dry completely.

Find and mark the center points of each of the pieces:
**Horizontal center points of the rectangular bottom piece
**Each end of the handle
**The bottom and top of the sides
We used an air-erase marker to mark the points.

Align one of the sides to the bottom piece, using the marked center points.
Turn the right sides down, and using a zig zag stitch, attach the side to the bottom piece.
Repeat and attach the second side piece to the bottom.

Put the right sides of the basket together. Pinch one of the corners together.

Sew up the corner using a zig zag stitch. Repeat this for the other three corners.

Align the center marking of the handle to the center point on the basket side. Right sides should be facing down; overlap the handle to the basket by a half an inch.
Use a zig zag stitch to attach the handle to the basket. Repeat for the other end.

Turn the basket right side out.

Dampen the basket with spray starch.
If you don’t have any spray starch, you can quickly make some by putting scraps of water soluble stabilizer in a spray bottle with water.

Once the basket is damp, place the cardboard shapes that you prepared earlier along the sides.

Prop the cardboard sides apart with some crumpled paper towels. This will shape the basket as it dries.

To shape the handle, take a piece of paper and roll it up. Slip under the handle, and then allow it to unfurl.

Once dry, fill the basket with colorful grass and Easter treats!
**If you have sewn multiple pieces of freestanding lace together before, you may have used a technique where you sew the pieces together before soaking the stabilizer from from the embroidery.
You are welcome to use that process with this technique rather than dampening the embroidery with spray starch. We tried both methods, and in our opinion, the method demonstrated above gave us the best results. The difference in quality was slightly noticeable.

Embroidery Design 01
Embroidery Design 02