Lagom storage bins

John and I are going in the near future to visit his childhood friend and his wife. We are staying their home and I never show up as a guest as someone’s home without a gift (nor does John); and with some Instagram snooping I discovered they love craft beers and so I made them a set of Lagom Storage Bins, pattern Sotak Handmade.

These are the same bins I made a couple months ago for some friends (see post Lagom Storage Bins). After I made them the first time I was not sure I was going to make them again as they use two different types of interfacing (SF 101 and Fusible Fleece) and they seemed sort of tedious to make (but the pattern is well written).

But on second round of making these bins they are growing on me. I did discover that with the larger sizes you would be better off making them with a cotton canvas/linen canvas for more strength. I used quilting weight fabric and the largest one I made seems slightly “floppy”.

The first time I made them I only made the smallest size “X-small”). Here are the sizes they come in per the pattern designer’s Etsy shop:

This time I made them in three sizes – X-Small, Small, and Medium.

I found some cool craft beer themed fabric that my late husband Terry had selected (he loved craft beer, dogs, and flannel fabric; and a lot of his fabric stash as a quilter was in these themes):

Here are photos of the bins (and I love how nicely they stack together!):

I hope they like them! I have no idea how their home is decorated as I am visiting them for the first time; but I thought using the theme of something that interests them might be safe…

John also made a host gift – a cutting board for them:

Rounded corners is a new thing he is trying on his cutting boards.

We are feeling pretty proud of ourselves as we didn’t wait until the last minute to make these gifts!

One of my favorite bag designers is Svetlana Sotak of Sotak Handmade out of the Netherlands. The drawstring bag pattern I use is one of hers. I love that buy purchasing her patterns she licenses handmade craft businesses to sell them on a small scale, all she requests is that you credit her as a pattern maker, like I’ve done in my Etsy listings in the past. (Note she sells her patterns on Etsy and that is where I purchase them in the US market)

I have several of her patterns and I recently tried out the pattern Lagom Storage Bins:

Image credit – sotakco.nl

Here are the three Lagom Storage Bins I made in the smallest size (the pattern has 5 sizes!!!) as gifts for friends:

The first one was made with Marimekko fabric from Finland was sent to my friend W in Central Oregon. The cool shark fabric is from my friend D when she came for a quilt retreat to my house in May (she brought awesome fabric for me as a hostess gift). The Asian fabric is from my stash and was actually selected by my sister for a future project she’d like me to make her for Christmas – a whole backpack out of that fabric.

As far as the Marimekko fabric one, here is how my friend W is using it in her home(thanks to W for the photo!):

The other two storage bins were given as welcome gifts to my friends MJ and J when they arrived at my home for a little quilting/girls retreat a couple weeks ago (I’ll share a post someday about that):

I didn’t enjoy making the baskets as much as I enjoy making the drawstring bags but I might just need to make more of them to get a true feel for what it is like to make them.

They do use two types of interfacing, which makes them a little more expensive to make that the drawstring bags, but they do not have a drawstring to have to thread at the end of the process (which is sometimes a little tedious when you just want to be done!).

I haven’t decided if I will offer them someday on my Etsy shop or not. First I have to grow to love making them 🙂

Oh and speaking of baskets, here is an amazing giant bag made out of recycled plastic grocery shopping bags my friend MJ brought me as a hostess gift when she came for the retreat. A friend of hers crochets them from her stash of grocery bags.