I recently gave my daughter’s bathroom a quick update using sailcloth fabrics and two of our free sewing patterns: a shower curtain and a laundry bin. I used underwater sisters (in lilac) for the shower curtain and our bright citrus St Croix floral for the bin.

I found a little stool and painted it with Farrow and Ball “Yellowcake”. I only needed a single sample pot to cover the whole stool, mostly because I gave it a good coat of primer first. I added a little dish shaped like a seashell to hold the sea sponge that she loves to use in the shower, and a few bright white towels, and voila: a new, beach, beautiful bathroom for a teenager who loves to swim.
Sailcloth is perfect for this laundry bin project. It has a little bit of drape, but when it’s doubled up and finished with a few extra seams, it becomes just stiff enough to stand up on its own.
And these bins are great for other uses too, we have one in the studio for sewing scraps, and another out on the sleeping porch holding quilts. The best part? They are machine washable and can be folded up and tucked away when they aren’t in use.
This is a great project for intermediate sewists, and brave beginners. You’ll be sewing curves, which become much easier when you know a few tricks, and you’ll be creating body and dimension by sewing together layers of sailcloth, which is super satisfying.