Doll Carry Basket

For the last Christmas, my girls got the Baby Alive toys from their doting Uncle and Aunt. I thought it will be lovely to make a doll basket for them to carry the dolls around.

Here I'll just be sharing some tips on how I made one. I didn't really look for any tutorial since it is basically a oblong base with side panels and straps.

First measure your doll to get the rough size how big your basket should be. Leave some ease for the little hand to put in their baby and blanket. My doll is around 14" tall and I made it to 16" long.

You just need 3 basic shapes (base, side panel and strap) and 2 fabric for outer and inner basket. I use fleece to make it soft but you can also batting or interface the fabric to make it stronger. To make the base sturdy, I insert a plastic canvas in-between the fleece/batting and main fabric.  

Here's how I did it.  First, cut all the pieces out.

Then, sew the base Lining piece to the fleece/batting but leave about 10" gap unsew along the middle portion to insert the plastic canvas. Once you inserted in, sew up the gap. Set aside.

For the Inner side panel, I also sandwich the main, fleece and inner fabric and do a simple quilting so that it will be strong and will stand since I didn't interface the fabric. I think I should have done it to make it sturdier.

Right side facing, place the side panel onto the base, starting from the top middle portion and start pining away. Try to align the raw edge and coming to the end points, leave about 3" unpin and sew up the side seams of the side panel. Then, pin the remaining side panel (which is now a loop) to the base. This will ensure that your side panel fits the base exactly.

Do the same for the outer basket except that there is just the Base + Side panel, without the fleece or plastic canvas to battle with.  Insert the inner basket into the outer basket, align the side seams.

Pin like crazy along the top edge. Then, sew all around the top edge.

Take a double fold bias tape and start pining along the top edge that you've just sewn.

Sew around again.

Next, take the 2 long stripe and sew them right side facing along the long side and turn it right side out. Do the same for the other 2 pieces. Fold in the raw edge on the short ends and sew them onto the basket.  Measure your kid so you know how long you want the strap to be.

And, there is your Doll basket! Add a pillow or blanket and your baby are good to go.