Making a moses basket for Baby C

I was luck enough to get not one, but two moses baskets via St Albans freecycle recently (along with a stand too!) but as these were just the bare baskets, literally, I knew I'd need to use my sewing skills to turn these into somewhere for Baby C to sleep. A new mattress (always recommended for a new baby) was easy to come by, and the same goes for a fitted sheet for the mattress (although how the same shop can sell fitted sheets that so not fit the mattresses they also sell is beyond me!) The bit I needed to make was a cover for the basket itself that the mattress could sit on top of.

 

I managed to find this lovely cotton fabric in Ikea of all places – honestly I hadn't realised how much fabric they do sell there – and they have some lovely unisex prints that work for children in nice primary colours if that's what you're after. A quick trip round some shops selling moses baskets with covers to work out how they'd done it, and a few phone calls to my Mum to check I wasn't forgetting anything and then it was quite a simple job.

 

The fabric itself was cut very much by eye after draping it across the basket to work out what length I needed and then rounding the corners as desired. I used some plain, light coloured, cotton fabric as a second layer (as the printed stuff was a tad thin on its own) and after hemming them all the way around (with a small gap left to turn it right side out) I made a channel to thread elastic through to hold the cover secure in place on the basket. 

Simple slits were cut to allow the handles to be fed through and the edges of these were made neat using some contrasting orange bias binding. A small press stud on each side also stopped the fabric gaping between the two ends of each handle.

Overall I'm very pleased with how this has turned out and even with figuring everything out as I went along (again with Mum's help!) it took less than a day to complete. You'll notice that one of the handles has had tape attached to it to strengthen it. This was done simply as a precaution against the handles wearing through as they did look a tad worn in placed. I plan to do the same to the second handle just as soon as I get round to it. If time allows I'll also look to make small covers for the handles themselves just to make them look a bit better.

The challenge now is to make a second one. The logic behind having two moses baskets is so that one can be upstairs and one downstairs. Our steep stairs don't look all that safe for carrying a baby in a moses basket so we thought removing some of the risk would probably be a good idea.