Adventures In Toasty Toes
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A few weeks ago, I made myself a heating roll for my neck. You know the sort of thing…you toss it in the microwave for a couple minutes and then drape it around your neck and enjoy warm relaxation until it cools off (an hour or so), then back into the microwave, if you’re so inclined. Well, one can can make such a device in most any shape desired, so I decided to try making a sort of pad that I could lay over my feet or stick into the foot end of my bed to pre-warm that area.
I used the leftover fabric from my cushion project in a rectangle that was about 36” by 14”. I folded it in half with right sides together, so that it made a rectangle about 18” by 14” and then sewed along one long side and the open short side.
I trimmed the corners and then used my pinking shears to cut away some of the seam bulk. I didn’t trim too close to the seam, as I needed enough fabric to remain to hold against the weight of the filling.
I turned the fabric right side out, turned the open edge about 1/2” to the inside, and pressed.
Next, I used my heat-erasable pen to draw stitching lines from long edge to long edge. I tried to evenly subdivide the fabric into seven sections, and I think I mostly got the sections even. Then I stitched along the lines.
Now I had a pocket of fabric that was open on one long side, but divided into sections, each of which would be filled individually. The openings were relatively small, so I couldn’t just use a glass to pour in the filling, like I’d done with my neck roll. For the filling, I’d bought about 6 pounds of the cheapest dried beans I could find in the bulk section of my grocery store. About half the beans went into my neck roll and the rest went into this project.
I needed some sort of funnel to get the beans in. So first, I tried to twist a piece of baking parchment into a frosting bag, like I’d seen my mother do years ago, when she took a cake decorating class. I clearly didn’t quite remember how to do it and I know I could have (should have) gone to YouTube to review the procedure. But I didn’t do that. Instead, I made a sort of very shaky, sloppy funnel, stapled and paper-clipped it closed, and then tried pouring beans through that. It did not go well. I don’t want to talk about it.
About the time I was dumping beans all over my studio (I said I don’t want to talk about it!), I remembered that I had, in amongst my cake decorating supplies, a box of plastic single-use frosting bags. Once I grabbed one of those to use as a funnel, everything went fine. I filled each section of the pouch with beans, stopping when the beans were about 2” from the top of the section. Then I used a couple pins to close each section (and keep the beans from escaping) before I moved along to the next. Yes, I could have filled the sections up more and still had room to sew them closed. But if you fill the sections too full, the resulting heating pad is quite stiff, and I wanted it to be more pliable.
Once all seven sections were filled and pinned, I sewed that top edge closed. And that was it! I immediately stuck it in the microwave for two minutes, and then went to lean back in my recliner, placing the heating pad on the footrest. Delicious relaxing warmth! It was lovely.
As with the original neck roll I made, one does not need to be precise in the sewing of this project. Make some guesses, do a little measuring if you must, and then don’t fret about it if it turns out a little wonky. If it holds the beans securely and is comfortable to use, then you’ve done what you needed to do. And as with the neck roll, this is a quick, easy, inexpensive project which yields fabulous results, and which also make for very nice gifts.
