Picnic Time

I don't like picnicking all that much because of my experiences as a child.  It seemed that every time we had a picnic the sandwiches were stale, the drinks warm, the bugs numerous and the bathrooms (if any) disgusting.


As I have aged I reconciled that sometimes picnics are necessary... like on long road trips or while enjoying visits to parks and such.  Many years ago I got a real picnic basket to carry all the stuff needed on a picnic and have been using it off and on over the years.


The past couple of years I have been using this basket to carry things for our snack attacks and lunches at the various quilting groups I attend at the Emlgrove Community Room.  These days my basket is packed and ready to go all the time with a table cloth, napkins, plastic utensils, paper plates and disposable cups.


I noticed the basket was getting a little tired looking and decided it could use some sprucing up.


Here's the original basket:

Not very pretty and can you believe that I originally got this basket from L'eggs as part of a summer weight pantyhose promotion?  How long ago was that?  Do they even make L'eggs anymore?


Anyway, the first step was to remove the contents and the plastic liner then hose the whole thing down to try to remove any dirt.  Then I stained it with some dark mahogany Minwax left over from when I restained the front door a few years ago.


It took a couple of days for the basket to dry enough for me to remeasure it for a new liner.  The old liner hand been stapled into the basket between the basket and a strip of lathe.  I used some wonderful spotted fabric from my stash and just tacked it back in with some staples.


Then I began to work on the contents.


I had a place mat kit, for four place mats, that I won somewhere and decided to make them up and use them in place of the old tablecloth I used in the past.  

Then the real action stared.


I dug in the old silverware stash and pulled out about enough for eight place settings plus a bunch of serving pieces.  They should be enough to handle most of our pot luck snacks and lunches.  To carry them I used the leftover fabric from the place mat kit to make a silver ware roll to hold the clean pieces. 


 The leftover fabric from the lining became nine napkins, about 14" x 14" that I serged to finish the edges.  


Then I stopped at Target and found some inexpensive dishwasher and microwave safe plastic plates and glasses. I'll pack a plastic container of some sort to transport the dirty ones home.

So that's it... a newly refurbished picnic basket full of color coordinated reusable goodies.  

Take that Martha Stewart!  ;=)