Sweet Treat Cones - A Festive Felt Tutorial

So the big countdown has begun and we are just a couple of weeks away from Christmas - Hooray!

The build up at Hope & Gloria began in earnest at the end of November when we held our first ever Family Christmas Sewing Workshop. As you know, we cater for a young audience with our school sewing clubs and holiday workshops so it felt very special to welcome an older group of sewing enthusiasts and keen beginners to one of our workshops in amongst our regulars and a few new faces. We were delighted to have grandparents, parents and children joining us for an afternoon of festive sewing, mulled wine and Christmas music playing gently in the background.

It's always a challenge to design projects that are going to work with mixed ability groups and for this workshop the challenge was extended to including projects that adults would also like to make. Thankfully the balance seemed to have been just right and the twenty people that attended left with fabulous handmade decorations, smiles on their faces and many requests for us to add something similar to the Hope & Gloria schedule in the near future - brilliant!

Along with Nordic Star decorations and Fabulous Felt Santas we also made Sweet Treat Cones. These cute decorations look great filled with treats and hanging on a Christmas tree or are a brilliant idea to use instead of party bags. They are also re-usable and can be part of your festive celebrations for years to come. Here's how to make them:

You will need:

• 1 felt quarter circle, 1 strip of felt 2cm x 20cm,
• To decorate - choose from beads, buttons, felt shapes, coloured thread to embroider stitches, shapes etc

**To make a template for the quarter circle cut out a large circle from a piece of paper. I used one with a diameter of 40cm but this can be varied depending on how large you want your cones to be, Fold the circle in half and half again to make a quarter then open out and cut along the folds.

Step one:

Decorate the front of the felt quarter circle using colourful stitches, fabric shapes, buttons, ribbon and anything else that looks festive.

Step two:

Fold it in half with the right sides facing and sew small running stitches along the straight edge.

Step three:

Turn it the right way around so that the design is on the ourside.

Step four:

Using a strip of felt or some ribbon as a handle sew the ends in place opposite each other at the top edge of the cone. Buttons make great decoration and will keep the handles place.

Your sweet treat cone is now complete and all you need to do is fill it with delicious Christmas Treats. Enjoy!