Ukraine Fundraiser - Part Duex

My friend, Gail, showed me a knitted and felted basket in the colors of the Ukrainian flag, but found it floppy and was challenged as to how to utilize it. So she offered to send it to me, if I thought I could do something with it to raise funds for the Red Cross efforts in Ukraine.

At the time she offered this via a zoom call, I had just posted the Peace Flags for Ukraine that I had felted, also to raise funds for the Red Cross efforts in Ukraine and thought that a 3d item might draw some additional attention. So, I said YES!

When the basket arrived, it was, indeed, rather floppy, the very long handle didn’t do much to assist the basket if one were to place anything into the basket, so I put on my thinking hat, tried out a few things, and came up with a great way to customize the basket to truly be a basket.

By rouching up the handle to less than half its length with upholstery thread, by turning over each (rather awkward) end to form a rim, and to stich up a pleat at the bottom to allow the basket to stand tall, the form was ready to fill.

Additionally, I added a canning rim to the bottom of the basket interior to give a bit of a frame for the items to sit upon. 

Then the REAL fun began!

Sunflowers! I created, through wet felting and needle felting, these glorious sunflowers with hammered flat Nespresso™ pod centers from fiber batts I had carded myself. Once I had the sunflowers created, I added stems and curly tendrils, filled the base with undyed fiber and began to needle felt the connections between the sunflowers and the basket.

This piece will be featured after Labor Day on Instagram and Facebook and will have a suggested donation of $100, 100% of which will be donated to the International Red Cross efforts in Ukraine. I will ship for free to the US in Priority Mail Flat Rate box. Watch my feed for the date and time this will be posted!