Rectangle Fabric Bin Tutorial

Do me (and yourself) a favor and read through all these instructions before making your bin! There are magics of math involved in this tutorial that I do not claim to understand.  You might think of a better way after you read through it.

First you'll need to make a pattern for your fabric bin.
Here are some simple steps to guide you through making your own pattern.

Note:  I'm using 1/2 inch seam allowances and folding my bin down one inch.  If you want a larger fold, you can adjust the pattern accordingly.

The grey area above represents the one inch your rectangle is wider than it is long (half inch on either side).  

For my example today I'm making a bin with a 3 x 4 inch base.  I added 7.5 inches to the top and bottom: 1/2 inch for my seam allowance, five inches for my desired height, and two inches for my decorative fold.  

Be sure to only add this measurement to the dark pink area (the width of your bin bottom, less the two 1/2 inch seam allowances).  Shown in the mauve areas below. 

My base rectangle side seam was 3 inches, so half of that is 1.5 inches.  I added this measurement to all four sides.   Shown in the light grey areas below.

Then I added a 1/2 an inch for the seam allowance.  The total width of my pattern (at the wide parts) is 8 inches.  Shown in aqua below.

Easy enough right?
I'm sure there is some mathematical shortcut to figure out how to do this and of course you have already guessed that I am to lazy to figure that out.  =)
Moving on...

Using your pattern cut out your interior and exterior pieces, one each.

Tip:  I only drew half of my pattern and just cut my fabric out on the fold.  Up to you.

I used cotton duck cloth for the exterior and quilting weight cotton for the interior.

Note: if you do not use a heavy weight fabric for the exterior your bin will not stand up on it's own. Add a heavy weight iron on interfacing if you are not using a heavy weight exterior fabric.

Starting with the exterior piece match up the two right side seam allowances (shown in blue on the pattern diagram) right sides together and stich a 1/2 inch seam.  Do the same for the left side seam.

Hopefully you can see the seams on the right and left.

You now have a flat little bin with two holes at the bottom.
Squish the right opening flat, lining up the bottom edge to the side edge and stitch a .5 inch seam. 

Repeat for the left opening and turn your bin right side out.
(You can press your seams or just finger press like I do)

Now repeat these steps for your lining except don't turn the bin right side out.  

Slip your interior bin inside your exterior bin wrong sides matching.  Line up the side seams and top edges and do a quick stitch around the top to hold it in place.

Now that your bin is assembled, all that's left is to fold down the top edge twice and you are done!

To make nesting bins.  I made three patterns whose bases were 1/2 inches smaller than eachother.