In the February issue, the ‘Blossom Lane’ quilt was made from simple Basket bocks in an unusual medallion setting. Baskets have long been popular blocks and a few traditional pieced ones are shown here.

Many Basket blocks are designed on the diagonal, so look very effective when turned on point, but there are a few e.g. nos. 4 and 5 where the design is upright.

Baskets 1 – 4 are simply pieced from triangles and rectangles. Nos. 1, 2 and 4 have a large triangular area which could e left plain or appropriate flowers or fruits could be appliquéd. The appliqué could be in plain fabrics e.g. nos..9 and 10, or could be cut from fabric printed with flowers or fruit, broderie perse style. The upper triangles in bock 3 could be cut from fruit or flower fabric to give the impression of a full basket.

Block 8, especially is a great scrap quilt and if it is made as a 12” block, uses up really small scraps.

More complicated piecing is needed for nos. 6 & 7 where 45º diamonds ‘fill’ the basket.

Hexagons can also be stitched into Basket designs again with space for appliqué as no. 11 or with flowers as part of the pieced design, no.12.

With clever colouring of the strips, a Log Cabin block can have the appearance of a Basket e.g..no. 13.

For an excellent selection of Basket blocks see ‘Encyclopedia of Pieced Quilt Patterns’ (ISBN 0-89145-815-8) and ‘Encyclopedia of Appliqué’
(ISBN 0-939009-75-7), both by Barbara Brackman..