To be or not to be a Fabric BOX? That is the question? Ü

Hi, I am Geta, a passionate quilter living in Romania.

Thank you Madame Samm for inviting me to join you all at Stash Manicure.

I want to share with you a tutorial for making fabric boxes. Do you use interfacing? For making bags, bowls? Or in clothes making?If your answer is positive, I am sure you have many leftovers, small scraps you don’t want to throw to the trash. I consider interfacing (especially the heavyweight one) as valuable as the fabrics I use in my projects. I am happy I found a way to use every bit of it !

These boxes use 5 squares of interfacing. I made the smallest with 4’’ squares, but if you have smaller scraps you can make them even smaller.The medium size box used 5’’ squares and the largest 6’’.

I have leftovers of Fast2Fuse, this is a heavyweight fusible interfacing. You can use non-fusible interfacing as well.

You can make such boxes in no time.

Here are the directions:

You need:

*5 squares of interfacing;

*5 squares of fabric for the interior of the box;

*5 squares of fabric for the exterior of the box.

I used cotton quilting fabric.

*Jeans/Denim needle #100/16.

Fuse the fabric to the two sides of interfacing. You will end up with 5 heavyweight squares.

I like sturdy boxes.

Fast2Fuse is very stiff, if your interfacing is lightweight, use more layers. You can add even batting.

• If your interfacing is not fusible, just make a sandwich with all the layers and quilt it to hold them together; then cut out of it a square in the desired size.
• You can pair lightweight interfacing with heavyweight fabric.

I added a few straight lines of quilting to my squares.

Lay the squares on a surface with the exterior facing up. To form the box, we have to attach the exterior squares to the central square.Attach first the left and the right squares then add the top and bottom squares.

Here is how to stitch the edges of the squares together:

Place two squares next to each other under the presser foot. Do not overlap the edges.

Join the pieces using a dense zig-zag stitch and be sure you catch both edges. Use the wider zig-zag stitch you can make with your machine.Backstitch at the beginning and ending of each seam.

Here the left and right squares are attached.

You can use a decorative thread in the needle and any thread you want in the bobbin.

Here all 4 squares are attached. This will be the exterior of the box.

Detail.

This is the interior of it.

Now we have to stitch the corners. Keep the interior facing up. Fold the piece in half on the red line (the diagonal of the center square). Keep the edges aligned.

As shown, stitch the edges together using the same dense and wide zig-zag stitch.

Detail after stitching.

And here is the first corner.

Repeat and stitch the other corners.

Finish the top edges in the same manner- zig-zag over them.

The box is finished, you can add some embellishments if you want.

Variation for more decorative boxes

Instead of plain fabric squares I used pieced blocks.

You can add even label with the content of the box or maybe the name of the kids...

Making fabric boxes is addictive! I just had to make an octagonal one. You can find the templates on my blog.

I hope you will find this tutorial useful.

Happy sewing! From Geta...and look....
below!

Editors NOTE: from Madame Samm....

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