Homemade Holidays: Recycled Flannel & Rice Hot Packs
A Stack of Handmade Hot Packs
I’m really trying to make a conscious effort to avoid cheap crap this Christmas. My wishlist includes sheets, pajamas, and a wireless mouse (Maxine chewed through the cord of this one, and consequently it works about 75% of the time). Likewise, I would like to give my friends and family things that they will use and love. Getting a gift I won’t use is really one of the worst things. First, I feel guilty for not using the gift so I give it to the Salvation Army or another place like that. Then I feel guilty for getting rid of something that someone cared enough to take the time to pick out just for me. Third, because I know that it’s like to not have a lot of money and struggle to pay your bills sometimes, I feel bad that they spent their money on me and it went to waste. Now that I think of it, I kind of understand why Kyle doesn’t like getting gifts very much. Still, I insist on giving people things at Christmas, and oftentimes in an effort to give practical and useful things, I just give people things that I either have and love or would love to have, like these rice hot packs.
A big old hole right in the crotch.
I have a few made out of old socks and rice (nothing fancy, which is why I haven’t posted about them before, also because I’m the only person I know over 5 who actually gets earaches) that I heat up in the microwave for my ear whenever I get an earache. I’ve been so happy with them that I decided to combine this very high-tech rice technology and an old pair of flannel, winter-themed pajama pants to make larger (as in cold feet, angry uterus, and lower-back-sized) hot packs to give as Christmas gifts.
To make these, you’ll need:
- microwave safe fabric of some kind
- a lot of rice
- essential oils or tea you’re not particularly fond of
- a sewing machine or needle and thread
I started by cutting as many appropriately-sized rectangles as possible from my fabric. If you aren’t using pants, you’ll need to make sure and cut one piece for the front and one piece for the back. I just chopped up the legs and butt until I ran out of fabric.
Because I used pants, I saved myself a little time since two sides were already sewn up.
Once you have your pieces cut out, turn them inside out (with the right sides together) and make sure everything is even. Since pants are tapered, it’s likely that you’ll have one slanted side and one straight side. If you aren’t using pants, you shouldn’t have this problem unless you’re a bad cutter.
Cut along the slanted edge so that top and bottom are parallel.
Once you’ve got something that looks like a fairly normal rectangle, with the fabric still inside out, sew up all but one side. I like to leave a longer side open because I think more shorter, fatter rows of rice look better than fewer, longer, thinner ones.
Sew along the red lines.
Turn this right-side out and you’ll have something like a big pocket. Fold down the raw edge of the open part around the mouth of the pocket. At this point you can press the flannel if you want. It’ll probably make the filling process easier, but I didn’t do it and my hot packs still turned out fine. Once you’ve got a pocket with the raw edges folded in, decide how many partitions you want your hot pack to have. The first one I made had only one, meaning there were two big fat pockets of rice. I found this design to be rather unruly and decided to give the rest of theme either two or three partitions, depending on their size.
I'll probably keep this big guy for myself because he's a little unruly.
Three pockets of rice is a lot easier to deal with, and all the rice doesn't fall to one side.
Sew from the open top to the closed bottom (or the other way around), making sure to keep the raw edge folded in. These stitches will serve as partitions to keep the rice from moving around too much. They serve to keep the rows of rice I was referring to earlier separate. Once you have your desired amount of partitions, it’s time to fill your hot packs! I bought 20 lbs of cheap white rice (of which I used a little over half to make these six). I also had some chai tea sitting around that I’m not really crazy about, though it smells good. I mixed the rice and loose tea and poured equal amounts into the divided pockets of the hot packs, pinning each one closed before I moved on to the next. After some trial and error, I found that roughly 3/4 full is a good amount of rice. Anything more is too bulky, and anything less can be a little floppy. Once they’re all filled, just sew the pinned end shut, back stitching at each end. That’s it!
Right now I’m planning to put together a few gift baskets which will include one of these, some nice tea, a sleep mask, homemade body butter or face scrub, or other things along that line. I’m thinking of making another to keep in the freezer (in a ziploc bag, I’d think?) for when I get headaches.
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