Sewing Selfishly....

So when I tell people that I sew they seem to think that all I do is make myself stuff....while this is sometimes true, a lot of the stuff that I sew is custom ordered (which I love to do!) or is made for a gift. When I heard about Selfish sewing week being co-hosted by my pal Rachel over at Imagine Gnats, I had to join in. 

My first concern was that I would have to make clothes....I have done a dress or 2 and they really aren't my thing...so when she said it didn't have to be I told her to count me in!

Like almost everyone I know, I have sore back issues, whether it's from being hunched over my machine all day or working at my "real" job all day, nothing feels better than a nice hot pad on my lower back. I have been meaning to make a rice-filled one that can be reheated in the microwave and I figured that this was the time to do it!

Now, to be honest, I didn't have the time to start from scratch, so I used the tutorial from Sew4home to base mine off of. 

Some of the things that I did different was that I add to the length and width to make it a little bigger for me. I also declined to use the rick-rack....I'm not really a rick-rack kind of person  

I scrounged in my stash and found some grey duck cloth and a pre-quilted white with a little padding to it. My original idea was also to make a cover for it but I couldn't find anything I like, so I think that I will just use a spare pillow case for the time being.

It is really a simple process to make this. Sew a rectangle from the 2 pieces (right sides togethee) with an opening in one end and turn inside out. I decided to reinforce the stitching by sewing along the 3 edges (not one with opening for right now) with a 1/8 in seam

I measured in half and drew a line and then measured the 2 halves in half and drew lines. That way I have 4 sections to fill and sew. I used 3 cups of rice for each section. 

Practice definitely made perfect on this project. On the first section I used my regular foot and just a couple of pins.....not good. As I did more, I changed to my zipper foot and pinned the heck out of each line. I also used my fav Aurifil thread #5004 for it's strength.

This helped the rice stay where it belonged and not escape. As you can see, by the end I was able to sew a nice straight line! lol

I wasn't sure how much rice I would need, so I bought a 10 lb bag....here's what was left....

I definitely used over half of it.....

Then it was time to test it out. It was recommended to start low and work your way up- time-wise- in the microwave. Also to be sure to keep it as open and possible and to flip in over. Mine is kind of big and the microwave here is kind of low on the wattage end of things, so I had to keep it in there for a few minutes to get the right temperature. Just be sure not to keep it in too long so that you don't burn the rice!!

This was super simple to make like 30 minutes if the rice behaves itself.

Thanks for following along and hope you have a wonderfully selfish week!!

~Kim