A Gift Cone- A Case Where Giving Was Such Fun!!!!

My wonderful and fabulously creative friend, Ruth Rae, had a fantastic article in the special publication Quilting Arts Gifts. ( The magazine is still available on some newstands!) She described how to create wonderful fabric and paper Gift Giving Cones. (You can access Ruth Blog thru the list to the right of this column.) This is an example of a gift were the container or vessel holding the gift could serve as the gift itself. Of course Ruth presented the directions and example in her own glorious style and I knew immediately that this was a process that I was going to enjoy!

I created a cone to hold a special Bird that I had created for my friend Karen's birthday.

The back.

This is the sort of peice where anything goes, the more texture and little surprises the better. The back is equally as important as the front and the top portion of the interior is very visible once the gift inside has been removed. There are many different surfaces and angles to keep in mind with this project.!!

The front detail.

I used white felt as the interior core and then layered on cheesecloth, organza, tulle and silk, sheet music and text from vintage books. I stitched pockets to tuck vintage buttons into and added amny different bits of vintage lace and trim. The center focal point is a vintage rhinestone shoe clip and then vintage mother of pearl buttons complete the closure down the front. The bootom is finished off with a vintage prism from an old chandalier.

The front interior.

After pinning all of the layers together, I went crazy with the machine stitching and practiced my free motion embroidery stitching to add even more texture!

Here is the special littl Wing Ding that was tucked inside!

This was a wonderfully fun project and I so enjoyed presenting it to Karen! I was so proud to give this gift and she was overwhelmed to receive it! This was definately a case where it was more fun to give than to receive!!!!!