Felt Tea Bag Tutorial

These felt tea bags at the Etsy store, Softie Cafe were my inspiration in designing my own pattern. I made these as part of Mrs. Sayuri’s friend, Bear’s, second birthday gift.

I designed a “mint” tea bag and a “chamomile” tea bag. The idea for the chamomile tea bag developed because that is Bear’s favorite flavor of tea. I thought these would be a fun addition to her felt food collection.

Materials needed:

• Card stock, or other heavy paper for making patterns.
• Embroidery thread/floss in dark green, gold, and white. I used two strands thickness of each for all my stitch work.
• Sewing machine (optional).
• Sewing thread in white and dark green.
• Embroidery needle, Sewing needle.
• Felt in: orange, yellow, white, dark green, and mint green.
• 1/8″ ribbon in coordinating color to felt bag color.
• Craft glue or liquid silicon meant for crafts.
• Poly fiber fill.

Measure, sketch and cut out your paper patterns:

On card stock (or similar material) measure and sketch the following patterns.

Felt Tea Bag – shape measurement:  2″ tall and 1 ½″ wide. I measured ½″ from the top and ¼″ from a side to make each corner-cut (see image below).

Felt Tea Tag (Square): Measure, draw and cut a 1″ square pattern.

Felt Tea Tag (Heart): 1¼″ wide and 1″ tall. I folded my card stock in half, sketched a half-heart and cut to get an symmetrical shape.

Felt leaf & felt flower shapes: Free hand sketch and cut out a leaf shape, a flower and flower center (as in photos).

Cut out your felt pieces:

Using the paper patterns that you made above cut all your felt pieces. Make sure to cut a set of two (front and back) of the tags and the tea bag pattern for each tea bag you intend to make.

Cut your ribbon in lengths of 5 ½″ each per tea bag.

Embroider:

Embroider top pieces of tea bags and orange square tag front.

Mint tea bag instructions: Position the dark green leaf at an angle with the tip of the leaf pointing to the upper right corner area of the mint green tea bag front piece. While holding this in place, hand embroider the leaf veins using the gold embroidery thread like so, making sure to sew through both layers of felt. This is to secure the leaf detail to your bag.

Chamomile tea bag instructions: Position your white flower in the bottom lower left area of your orange tea bag front piece. Using white sewing thread, secure it in the center with a few hand stitches. Continue to secure it using hidden stitches with each petal. Using the same thread and needle, then secure the yellow flower middle. Hold it in place and attach it using hidden stitches as well. Next, using the gold embroidery thread, secure the flower further by making visible stitches starting under the flower center (trying to get a little bit of the underside of the middle in each stitch to secure it better) and going out towards each petal division. Tie this off on the back.

Next, embroider two little flowers in the upper right area with a little leaf detail to top it off like in the above picture. I used a french knot for the gold centers and normal straight stitches for the white petals and green leaves.

Add “TEA” text on tag: Embroider the square tag with the letters T-E-A using the split stitch. I used dark green embroidery thread on an orange felt tag.

Attach Ribbon:

Attach about ¼″ of the ribbon to the back tea bag piece, on what will be the inner side of the tea bag, using a dot of craft glue under the ribbon. Next attach the other end to what will be the inside of your tea bag tags. For the heart shaped tags, attach the ribbon to the pointy end of the heart.

(I sewed these on by hand to secure them even further.) Allow to dry.

Stuffing and Machine Stitch:

Lay your embroidered finished top piece on top of your bottom piece (with the glued ribbon edge on the inside between them). Stuff them slightly with the poly fiber fill and pin them so the edges match up (but leave the bottom edges unpinned). Machine stitch (or hand stitch) 1/8″ from the edge all the way around, starting on the right side and coming around till you get to the bottom left corner. Stop the machine and make sure the needle is in the felt, then lift your sewer foot and fill your tea bag more until it is stuffed to where you want it. Then, lower your sewing foot and sew it closed.

Blanket Stitch:

Lastly, blanket stitch around the raw edges of the tea bag and attach the two tag pieces with the blanket stitch, as well as using more embroidery thread. For the mint tea bag I used a dark green embroidery thread, and for the chamomile tea bag I used gold on one and white on the other. I think I prefer how the gold turned out.

You are Done! Enjoy.

If you like this please share with others.  Also for those that make their own versions please link in the comments to your posts so we can see your creativity and what yours turn out like! Happy Crafting. 🙂