Moses Basket for a Doll =)

Moses Doll Basket Tutorial

Well, last night I got the urge and just couldn’t resist it.  You know the one, when you’ve been thinking about making something and the idea finally clicks!  So at 10pm I started crafting, and this is what I came up with.

I’ve been seeing cute baby doll bassinets everywhere, and when my daughter got the first baby doll she’s shown any interest in, I wanted to make one for her, of course!  But I decided I wanted mine to look woven, more like a Moses basket than a fabric bassinet.  So I decided to make it like a braided rag rug!  I love how it turned out =)  As an added bonus, I had all those yellow fleece scraps in my stash, so I didn’t have to buy anything!!  It took around three hours start to finish. 

First, I cut a bunch of two inch strips from my fleece, about 12 yards.  This was enough to make the base and the sides of the bassinet.  I made about two more yards of two inch wide strips for the cover side. 

Then I sewed the strips together into three long strips.  I sewed at an angle, like you do for binding, so that there wasn’t as much bulk in the braid. 

Sorry for the bad pic, but believe me, there is a wrong way to do this, and I did about all of them.  =)

Then you braid them together.  I tied my strips to Serenity’s Yookidoo (this is a seriously awesome toy btw =)  and started braiding.  I discovered quickly that since I sewed the long strips, it helped if I sort of balled them up to braid.  Otherwise things got seriously tangled.  You could also braid short strips, then attach another strip, then braid, and so on, but I don’t like to go back and forth to the machine that much.  As I was doing it I thought it could be a seriously awesome Rapunzel braid too. =) 

Then I just started making the basket.  The base is exactly like an oval rag rug.  I used yellow Perl cotton to lace it together, which was perfect because it didn’t show.  But really I used it cause that’s what I had.  This project started at 10pm, so I worked with what I had! You lace it just like shoes, through the loops of the braid.  I went under from the back, up through the top.  Check out these diagrams in case that sentence makes no sense.  http://www.craftown.com/instruction/rugs.htm.  My strip started at 10 inches, and then I went around in an oval until it was about 15 inches by 9 or 10 inches. 

Then I started making the sides.  To get them to angle up, I used a ladder stitch to connect the base to the sides.  I’m still going around the oval here, I just switched my stitch. Then when I went around once, I kept going with the normal lacing stitch until it was the height I wanted.  I used about 9 yards of braid, which took the 12 yards of strips to make. 

Then I added the little section over the head.  I added in a new braid strip, weaving in the ends of the knot back into the basket.  Then I went around as far as I thought it should go, and then folded it back on itself to make the little arched top.  Hopefully the picture explains that better =)  Then I attached a little bow to where it connected to the basket, partially because it’s cute and partially to conceal the connection. 

Then I just had to make some handles!  I used one inch strips for these braids, and tacked them on starting right next to where the arch ended.  The handles aren’t quite centered because I figured the weight would be more on the head side. 

So there it is!  A Moses basket for your baby dolls =)  Serenity has been putting Rose to bed all morning.  Thanks for the doll Aunt Jan!!  =)  Let me know if anyone has questions!  I’d love to hear that someone actually used this tutorial =)

Of course, Rose needed covers and a pillow too =) So we used the scarves we dyed =)