Five Baskets I Would Buy Before They Stop Making Them
Most of these designs are not being made again. I have strong opinions about which ones to take.
The Quick Take
- Lulu is the one visitors actually stop and ask about, and the one that proved the handles hold.
- Coral never made it as far as the utility room. It lives in the bathroom now.
- Daisy has not held a single sock in my house, and that is rather the point.
- Pearl is the one I keep buying for other people, which has become an expensive habit.
- Fiona is the one I bought for myself afterwards, and it is the one I would not give up.
They are the Evely Rose quilted laundry baskets — £34.95 to £41.95 depending on the size — and most of the designs are being retired rather than restocked.
I am not writing this because anyone asked me to. I am writing it because I went to order a second Coral for my sister last week and had a small moment of panic about whether it would still be there. It was. Several others were not.
So this is the list I would have wanted someone to write for me a year ago: which ones are worth having, and why, from somebody who now owns rather more of them than she intended to.
Lulu Is The One People Actually Ask About
The cats on the books. I bought it half expecting to find it a bit much in the flesh, and instead it is the thing my daughter-in-law commented on before she had taken her coat off.
What sold me on the range, though, was not the print. It was carrying it. Mine goes down a full flight of stairs stuffed to the top twice a week, and the handles are stitched canvas rather than the glued-on straps you get on the cheap ones. Nothing has stretched, nothing has started to pull away at the seam. After a year that is the only test I care about.
Coral Never Made It To The Utility Room
I ordered the turtles intending it for the landing. It got as far as the bathroom on the day it arrived and has not moved since, because it turns out a basket with something worth looking at on it belongs in the room you actually stand about in.
It holds rolled towels beautifully. It is quilted right through, so it stands up by itself whether it is full or down to the last flannel — no sagging inwards, no sad lean against the side of the bath. And it wipes down in seconds, which in a bathroom matters more than I expected.
Daisy Has Never Held A Single Sock
This is the one that changed how I think about the whole lot of them. The bee one sits by my front door and holds scarves, gloves and the hat I lose every October. Not laundry. Never laundry.
Which made me realise what I had actually bought. It is not a laundry basket you are prepared to look at. It is storage that does not need hiding, and once you own one that passes that test you start finding corners of the house that have been waiting years for it. The hallway was mine. My sister's was the foot of her spare bed.
Pearl Is The One I Keep Buying For Other People
Three so far. One for my sister, one for a friend who moved last spring, one for my neighbour who had admired mine out loud twice, which I took as a hint.
It is a strange thing to give somebody and an easy thing to receive, because nobody buys themselves a nice laundry basket. They buy the grey plastic one in a hurry and then live with it for six years. If you are sending two to one address, the shop knocks ten per cent off a pair, which is how I ended up keeping one of my sister's.
And Fiona, Which I Bought For No Sensible Reason At All
The highland cow. I have no cows. I live in a terrace. I bought it in January because it was grim out and the picture of it made me feel better, which is not a justification I would have accepted from anybody else.
It sits by the fire and holds blankets, and it is the one I would be most annoyed to lose. I have thought about that quite a lot since finding out most of these are not coming back — that the one I chose for no good reason is the one I would replace first. Make of that what you will. I have ordered a spare.
Would I Buy It Again?
I have, five times, which rather answers it. But the honest version is this: I would not have written any of this down if they were simply carrying on making them. A laundry basket is not something you feel urgency about.
What changed my mind was going to buy another one and realising that the list of designs is shorter than it was. That is not a sales tactic as far as I can tell — it is just what happens when something is made in small runs by hand and the sums stop working.
— Diane Ashcroft, Shrewsbury
A note on what I actually know. I am a customer, not an employee. What I have been told is that most of the designs in this collection will not be made again once the current stock has gone, and that the sale price is on while they clear it. I do not know which specific ones will go first, and neither, I suspect, do they. If there is one you have had in mind, I would not leave it until after Christmas.
