Don't Throw Out Fabric Scraps When You Could Make Beautiful Bespoke Decor Baskets

Woven baskets can add tremendous impact to any space. While materials, sizes, and price points are plentiful, handmade DIY baskets allow you to customize your colors and materials to fit your décor to a tee. While basket weaving may seem like something best left to the professionals and artisans, there are numerous ways to create simple baskets without any workshops or training that can be beautiful additions to your home. Instagram's @labasketry recently showed off how she turned simple leftover fabric scraps into stunning colorful baskets with an easy no-sew weaving technique and some scissors. 

Woven cloth baskets have been used to decorate homes for centuries. But, this idea allows you to not only create a truly unique piece, but also to use up fabric scraps you may have leftover from other projects. It's also a cool, eco-friendly way to repurpose elements like sheets, towels, or clothing you may otherwise be thinking of throwing in the trash. Even better, this technique allows you to create distinctive décor for next to nothing in supplies.

Use these baskets as stylish storage on your entry table or dresser to store keys, sunglasses, or jewelry. Larger baskets make excellent fruit baskets, or if you add a plastic liner, adorable planters. Oversized baskets made of old scraps are also perfect for keeping closets and shelving units neat or for turning into a stylish laundry basket or hamper.

There are a number of great techniques, both no-sew and minimal sewing versions, to create beautiful and handmade baskets of various sizes and weaves. For the simplest, cut a rectangle fabric into strips but leave about an inch at the top of the piece still intact. Cut the piece into segments of two strips, each still attached to each other. Wind two strands together until they are slender enough to begin wrapping around another rolled fabric piece or rope. Continue to create a coil as you go, anchoring the center with a simple stitch for some hot glue. Continue to coil outward, attaching each row to the other with the fabric until you've reached the desired size of the base of your basket. Then begin working upward on the sides and continuing until it's as deep as you want it.

Another technique, demonstrated by Art Gallery Fabrics, involves braiding individual strands until you have a rope-like piece long enough to compose the entire basket. You can use a safety pin to help hold the beginning strands in place and add more strips as you work. Use a sewing machine stitch to create the beginning of a coil and then work outward and upward, securing each row with intermittent stitches to the one before it. You can also do this technique with a hot glue gun instead of sewing.