Celebrating Chanukah with Cocoa

Hey, everyone! It’s Ruth here on the blog today. I’m going to walk you through how to use the Cocoa appliqué pattern to make a menorah with removable candles for Hanukkah! Let’s celebrate Chanukah with Cocoa!

Included in this blog, you will find a JPEG template to make a menorah. It is sized to match the smallest size of candle in Cocoa. If you don’t wish for your appliqué to be removable, then you can use the template and simply follow the tutorial in the pattern.

I knew my kids would be so excited to have a hoodie they could “light” each night, so I wanted to be able to add the candles each day. To begin, determine what you are making and if you need to scale the template down at all. I put this on an 18/24mo Tamarack so I needed to scale it considerably smaller. My menorah measured 8 inches across when I found the size I liked. Make sure to also scale your candles to match. If you need help with this, you can find help in the Cocoa tutorial.

Here is the menorah template for you to save and print:

Cutting and Prepping:

I traced all my shapes onto Heat n’ bond and ironed it onto my menorah and candle fabric. Then cut out the shapes with the Heat n’ bond attached. The menorah piece, I ironed onto the front piece of my hoodie. I only ironed the bottom portion to stabilize it, not the candleholders—this allowed the candleholders to be a pocket in later steps. For the candle pieces, I ironed them onto a non-stretch fleece.

Menorah:

I edgestitched from the side, around the bottom, to the other side. Then I edgestitched from one side of each candleholder to the other, backstitching at the beginning and end for a stable seam. I did NOT stitch the top of each candleholder closed. This is important because what it allowed me to do is have a little pocket inside each candleholder.

Candles:

I edgestitched around each candle and flame onto the fleece. When finished, I cut around each shape to create a candle on its own. I chose to add snaps to adhere them to the hoodie, but you could use Velcro or something else as well. I added an orange snap at the base of each flame.

Sewing

Once I had completed those steps, I slid each candle part way into the candleholder opening and marked the where the opposite snap should be attached with a fabric marker on my main fabric. I added a strip of sew-in interfacing to the back to stabilize the snaps.

Because of the snaps and the interfacing, I cut two front pattern pieces to have a liner so there’s nothing to irritate my kids’ on the inside. I also added a pocket by cutting a circular shape and adding a band. My band measured 1.5 inches wide and I stretched it to fit. If you want more precise measurements, measure your pocket opening and then cut your band at 80% of that length.

Once everything was stitched and snaps were added, all that was left was to sew it up! Since I added the pocket to the front, I treated the front and lining pieces as one when I finished the garment. Then I added labels from Shine Bright Label Co. to complete the Celebrate Chanukah with Cocoa hoodies!