What you're describing sounds like an overtired baby who hasn't quite worked out how to go to sleep by herself.
Newborn babies will just fall asleep by themselves wherever they are, but as they get older they get more sensitive to external stimuli and will find it harder to sleep when they're tired.
You need a set of consistent cues that will always be present when it's sleep time --eg. cot/basket, curtains drawn, maybe a sleeping bag, possibly some background noise (radio 4 always worked well for ours).
Ideally you don't want her to get used to anything involving large amounts of active participation from you (rocking, singing, cuddling), because as she gets older it will take her longer and longer to fall asleep, until you'll be spending the entire evening sitting by the bed patting her back (or whatever).
The idea is that once you've got past the first few difficult days, the baby will then 'know' what to do when it's sleeptime, hopefully bypassing the whole "fussing and fretting in an overtired way" routine. But it probably will mean you spending quite a bit of time picking her up, patting, and putting her back down in the basket until she gets the idea.
I'm not really into letting them cry for long periods, but at certain key moments going off to make a cup of tea and coming back five minutes later can be quite effective.
hth