Project Overview
Sewing Level | beginner |
Age Level | kids and adults |
Sewing Time | 15 minutes—but it’s impossible to stop at just one! |
Skills Practiced | cutting fabric, sewing straight lines, backstitching; optional: edgestitching, sewing around curves |
Finished Measurements | whatever size you like! |
Ring in the New Year with a fun and easy sewing project! Sew felt fortune cookies in every color and size on a sewing machine or by hand using a needle and thread. Customize your cookies with decorative stitches and write special messages to slip inside. Make a year’s worth of fortune cookies for yourself, or sew some for your friends and family (or cats!) to give them warm wishes for the year ahead. For a greater challenge, you can try sewing fortune cookies out of fabric and practice sewing around curves.
If you’d like in-person support and instruction, please sign up for my classes at Modern Domestic or contact me to schedule a private lesson. Terms that are bolded and highlighted are defined in my Sewing Glossary post.
Download a PDF of the tutorial here:
Tutorial Use Guidelines
Felt Fortune Cookie Tutorial © 2025 by Aliya Hoff-Vanoni is licensed under CC BY 4.0
This means you can distribute the tutorial, adapt it to fit your needs, and sell products made using this tutorial as long as you provide proper credit! You can copy and paste the sentence above, or write something like: I used the Felt Fortune Cookie Tutorial by Aliya Hoff-Vanoni of extradisciplinary. Depending on how you are sharing your work, you might provide a link to this webpage, a link to the Threadloop Pattern Page and my Threadloop Profile, and/or tag @extradisciplinary and use the hashtag #FeltFortunes on Instagram.
Feel free to contact me with any questions about these guidelines or if you’d like me to teach a workshop using this tutorial.
Gather Your Supplies
- Wool felt in your desired colors: this project is excellent for using up small scraps. If you purchase felt for this project, you can buy felt sheets at the craft store or small cuts (like a fat quarter) at your local fabric store.
- For the optional fabric version: quilting cotton, Essex (cotton linen blend), or similar weight woven fabric and a small amount of batting, flannel, poly-fil, or fabric scraps for stuffing.
- 1 spool of thread that matches or contrasts with your felt.
- Round objects in a variety of sizes to trace circles (e.g., lids, jars, cups, or bowls). My favorite size is 4” diameter, but anything between 2.5” and 4.5” will work.
- Washable Crayola marker (or similar) for drawing on felt.
- Paper to write fortunes on (printer paper or slightly heavier construction or sketchbook paper work well), cut into 1/2” wide strips.
Helpful Tools and Notions
- Scissors for cutting fabric: dedicate a pair of scissors for fabric only to keep them sharp! Cutting paper, plastic, and other materials will dull your scissors quickly.
- Optional: pinking shears
- Scissors for cutting paper
- Sewing pins or clips (e.g., Clover Wonder clips or small binder clips) to hold fabric together
- Seam ripper
Cut Your Fabric
- Trace around a round object with a marker and cut out the circle with fabric scissors. Trim away any obvious maker lines. A bit of marker along the edges won’t be noticeable on the final object.
- If making fabric cookies, you will need to cut two circles of the same size per cookie.
- Optional: cut out circles using pinking shears to create a fun edge.
Optional: Decorate Your Cookies
- If desired, add decorations to the right side of the felt circles (i.e., the side without marker lines). Get creative! This is a wonderful opportunity to use zigzags and other decorative stitches on your sewing machine that you might not get to use very often.
- You can also add decorative stitches or embroidery by hand, sew on felt shapes for appliqué, or even draw on the felt with markers.
Optional: Make Fabric Fortune Cookies
- Pin or clip two circles of fabric that are the same size right sides together.
- Edgestitch around the circumference of circles using a regular stitch length (2.5mm) or a slightly shorter length to make it easier to sew around curves (2.0 mm). Leave a gap large enough so you can turn the cookie right side out. Secure your stitches by starting and ending your stitch line with a backstitch.
- Sew slowly and stop as often as you need to (with the needle down in the fabric) to pivot your fabric as you sew around the circle.
- Depending on how bulky your fabric is, you may need to clip or notch into your seam allowance to help it turn neatly. Leave the seam allowance of the turning gap fully intact so it’s easier to sew closed.
- Turn your cookie right side out through the gap. Use your finger, a point turner, or a chopstick to gently push the seams out until it looks like a circle. If desired, insert a small amount of batting, stuffing, flannel, or fabric scraps to give the cookie more volume. Don’t add too much stuffing or it will be difficult to complete the next step!
- Fold the un-sewn edges of the fabric at gap until the raw edges are hidden on the inside of the cookie. Shift the folds around as needed until they line up nicely with the sections you already sewed and press with your fingers or an iron. Pin or clip to hold in place.
- Edgestitch the folded edges to sew the gap closed using a regular stitch length (2.5 mm) or a slightly shorter length to make it easier to sew around curves (2.0 mm). You can continue the edgestitch around the entire circumference of the cookie, if desired. Remember to backstitch at the beginning and end or overlap your stitch lines.
Sew the Center Seam
- Fold one felt circle (or one double-thickness circle) in half with right sides together to make a taco shape.
- Using a regular straight stitch with a length of 2.5 mm, sew a line of stitches perpendicular to the long folded edge. Stop stitching before reaching either edge. Remember to backstitch at the beginning and end of the seam.
- Use scissors to trim any thread tails.
Flip Right Side Out
- Open up the right side of the taco and pull the edges out and towards the seam you just sewed. Repeat on the left side. Pinch the folds to shape to your liking.
Add a Fortune
- Write your chosen fortune on a 1/2” wide strip of paper. Cut of any excess paper if needed.
- Fold up the strip and slip it into the opening of the felt cookie. Alternatively, you roll the paper around a pencil instead of folding it.
Fortune Ideas
- Nurture your creativity.
- Your creativity inspires others.
- Your creativity will lead to new beginnings.
- The enemy of creativity is self-doubt.
- A truly rich life contains love and art in abundance.
- There is cute fabric in your future.
- All you need is love (and cookies).
- The fortune you seek is in another cookie.
- It is never too late to follow your dreams.
- The only impossible journey is the one you never begin.
- A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.
- Little by little, one travels far.
- Be proud of how far you have come.
- Make yourself proud today.
- Do something today that future you will thank you for.
- You are worthy of love and belonging just as you are.
- Make happiness a priority, and be gentle with yourself in the process.
- Reach for joy and all else will follow.
- Perfect is boring. Human is beautiful.
- Show someone you care today.
- Small acts of kindness have profound impacts.
- The greatest gift you can give is your time and attention.
- Follow your heart and see what happens.
- Do the thing that scares you most.
- The greatest risk is not taking one.
- Trying something new is an act of courage.
- All things are difficult before they are easy.
Keep In Touch
Thanks very much for reading! If you have any questions, feedback, or corrections regarding the tutorial, please don’t hesitate to contact me! I’d love to see what you make, so please tag me on Instagram and use the hashtag #FeltFortunes. You can also find me and this tutorial on Threadloop.
Further Reading
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