With only about six weeks left to go, I'm starting to realize that the pre-baby to-do list is a little on the lengthy side. The crib is assembled and nestled into a little alcove opposite our bed, and the bedroom walls have been repainted, so a few things have gotten done. But there are quite a few more. One item that had been hanging out near the top of my list was stitching up some fabric buckets for storing baby clothes. We are using up what little space we have for furniture on the mini-crib, so the little guy won't have a dresser of his own. Instead, I found a small, low bookshelf that I'm planning to line with baskets and bins to hold all the little socks and onesies and whatnot. Goodness, I do love the little socks. I finished the first couple of buckets today, using the incredibly simple but perfectly genius nesting buckets pattern from Maya. Do you read Maya's blog? If not, you should. She is one of the nicest gals on the interwebs as far as I'm concerned.
Anyway, I used a natural colored linen for the main fabric for the buckets, and some Heather Ross Far, Far Away III for the rest. For the middle layer, I used The Mystery Batting. The Mystery Batting is a random cut of batting made from unknown material that I picked up at a fabric warehouse sale a few years back. I've always suspected it was wool, but had no proof. Anyway, The Mystery Batting is pretty fluffy, floppy stuff, so for the next round of bucket sewing I will probably go with something a little stiffer. But since I'm assuming that these buckets will be fairly well filled, I think that having such soft sides won't really be a problem for them.
Longer than necessary story made short: I'm really happy with how these turned out and am planning to make a bunch more in different sizes.
Oh, and if you don't need buckets for baby clothes, you could absolutely put other things in them instead.