Adventures In Hand Warmers

Buoyed by  my success making a warming neck roll and a foot warmer, I decided to try one more such project…some little packets that would function as hand warmers, either tucked into pockets or maybe dropped into mittens.  Instead of beans, I bought a big bag of flax seeds for the filling.

I started by measuring my hand, and decided that the packet should be roughly 4” x 3”.  I initially started by trying for a design that could sort of fasten around the hand, so that the hand warmers wouldn’t need to be gripped.  I went so far as to draw out a pattern and try it out, but I couldn’t get it to work.

Plan B was just little square-ish pockets.  I cut two 4” x 5” pieces of some red flannel I had in the stash, then sewed a 1/2” seam on three sides, leaving one of the shorter sides open.  I trimmed the corners, turned the pocket right side out, and then pressed 1/2” of the open edges to the inside.

The opening was big enough that I didn’t have any trouble pouring in the flax seeds from a little glass jar.  I left about 1.25” of space at the end, put in pins to hold the flax seeds away from the opening, then top stitched the opening closed.  Easy peasy!

I made two of these (because I have two hands, obviously) and then dropped them in the microwave for one minute on full power.  Which was too long, as it turned out.  Forty-five seconds is plenty for these small warmers.  They remain warm anywhere from 30-45 minutes, which is plenty of time to do something outdoorsy in chilly weather, like go for a walk.

Easy and inexpensive to make, these would make nice gifts.  My mother is getting these for Mother’s Day, as she lives in a cool region and likes to take a daily walk.  As with the other heating pad projects, precision sewing isn’t required, although I do recommend that you use a short stitch on the sewing machine, so that the flax seeds don’t slip out through the seams.