I am so awesome.

Earlier this month I went to a sewing workshop organised by a university club that I've been a member of since, well... University. It was meant to be a cloak making workshop, but you could make anything you liked, really.  So, I made a lining for my front basket!

This is the view from above.

This is from the back. I used twho ribbons to attach it to the hooks that go over my handlebars. The drawstring is theaded through the lining which folds over the top. Because the basket is narrower on the bottom, this will help keep the lining in place all around.

You can see here what I mean about it folding over. The drawstring is at the base of this flap. The shoe in the background isn't mine, by the way.

Of course, this being Winter, there's the slight issue of rain. I don't particularly want the contents of my basket getting soaked, nor do I want to risk it filling up with water. So, I decided that I need a lid, and I made one a few days later:

This is the view from the top. How pretty is that fabric! Got it on sale at Spotlight.

This is from the front, and those are my knees at the bottom of the picture. As you can see, the lid is made from fabric that is slightly wider than the top of the basket so it wraps around. I also used a drawstring to hold this one on:

So I now have two drawstrings at the back, and both the lid and the lining tie onto the hooks of the basket.

This is the view from the top, with the lid up. I used the same yellow fabric for the underside of the lid as I did for the bottom and outside of the lining, so it all matches nicely!

It's also waterproof! I did that by sewing a layer of tarp between the blue and yellow fabrics.



I did this without a pattern; I just used a measuring tape and my own genius brain ;-) And I now have a much prettier basket! My next project will be to make a matching lining for the basket on the back of my bike. That one will be a little bit tricker because of the shape. And yes, I will put up pics of my bike with the basket at some point. Once I've taken them :-)