80 Pieces, part 2 - finished!

If you haven't read my previous post, you may want to do so before reading this one. This is a continuation of that, showing the completion of my 80-piece project. This post is photo-heavy, but I want to show you what kind of a process I went through. It was no little job, that's for sure!

I ended the previous post after the quilting and the 48 darts were sewn. All of these pieces below except the top one have the darts, 8 per piece. Next the ends were sewn together and that seam bound.

A top binding piece was added, and this is how one of them looked at that point. Do take note of how well that fabric matches my sewing room wall!

There were the 6 of those little pods plus a center pod. (You can see the bottoms of the pods and the handle off to the sides.)

With a few more seams in each one, their shapes became this.

Then the bottoms had to be added. Wonder Clips to the rescue!

That proved to be some challenging sewing, but I figured out if I used my forceps, it made the job considerably easier. Still challenging, but much more doable.

After the bottoms were added, they had to have bindings (like you can see sticking out at the edges of the seam above). Once again, Wonder Clips proved invaluable!

Those 3 pods above became these... completed. Whew!

The center pod was shaped a bit differently, and the handle was attached to its sides. It'd make a kind of cool Easter basket, don't you think? Quite appropriate for today. But that's not what it is.

Getting closer to the end, the outer pods were attached to the center. Here are the first 3 done. I did them in this order simply so I didn't have to change thread colors as often.

Voilà! All sewn together! And here we have the Honeycomb Basket.

I made it from the pattern written by Beth Studley of Love From Beth. It can be purchased here. I love it! I think it's adorable and worth all the time and effort that went into it.

The pattern calls for only 2 fabrics, but I chose to use 3, which made it a bit trickier, especially when cutting it out. I only had a fat quarter of the aqua fabric, which I wanted to use because it matches my walls so well. It was enough for 3 of the pods... barely! So I worked out the rest of it using the solid blue for the rest of the pods.

Here's what the bottom looks like, in case you're curious.

No, it wasn't Courtney's Easter basket. It was a bit labor-intensive for something like that. Yes, it's for me. What in the world am I going to use it for, you ask? It's a part of my sewing room organization process. It's going to make a better solution for this mess which sits next to my sewing machine.

It will hold these items and more.

I'm not sure what the final arrangement will be. I just tossed some things in there for photo purposes. But I think it will be very handy and certainly more attractive than the mess I showed you above.

Here's another shot, next to my iron, to give you a better idea of its size. It measures about 13" at its widest point, and the center pod is 5" high, not including the handle.

Would I recommend the pattern? Yes, if you don't mind spending all the hours it takes to put it together. There's a lot of quilting, but it's easy. The darts weren't hard to sew. The bottoms of the pods were challenging, as I said above, and they involved some wrangling, as did sewing all the pods together. It was recommended to sew them and the bindings by hand, but I didn't. Some of the bindings aren't the neatest, but they don't really show up that much. I'd do it that way again, because I don't like hand sewing very much (not to mention the extra time it would've taken), plus I think sewing the pods together by machine makes them stronger.

The one negative thing I have to say about the pattern is that the bindings turned out to be too narrow. I had a terrible time (and did lots of grumbling) trying to get them to fit over the seams, especially for the bottom ones which included 2 layers of foam. But it's a simple fix... were I to do it again, I'd just cut the bindings ¼" wider (except for the extended one on the center pod, which was fine).

Would I make another one? Yes, I would... but only if I had nothing else in the sewing queue. It took me about 2½ weeks to make it, sewing a little every day, so it was very time-consuming, but all in all, it was worth it. Just don't ask me to make you one, because I'd have to charge you a fortune! ;)

I had another idea when thinking about putting the scissors in there. I don't want the points to go poking into the fabric and wearing holes in it. It just so happens that a tuna can fits perfectly in the outer pods, so my plan is to take one and glue a couple layers of foam in the bottom (to protect the scissors' points), cover it with matching fabric, and use it in one of the pods. I just haven't done that yet because I was too anxious to show you the completed basket. :)

So there you have it! Will you be making one???