Up-cycled heat pack present

Now this was back in July but I thought the idea was worth sharing. My daughter's very wonderful Kindy teacher announced that she was retiring and it just happened to be at the completely wrong time for our families budget for me to be able to buy her a good-bye present, so I decided that I was going to have to make something.

Last Christmas I made wheat bags (microwaveable heat packs) for many of my colleagues, family and friends for Christmas, so i new how to make these bags and I had plenty of left over wheat - comes in really cheap 20kg bags from the pet/farm feed places. What I didn't have left over was suitable fabric. Fabric needs to be 100% cotton and fairly heavy weight. I ended up looking through my rag/throw-out pile and found two old pairs of hubby's shorts. He couldn't wear them any more but there was plenty of useable fabric. I gave them a wash and then cut out enough rectangles of fabric to make 4 heat packs.

Pair of old shorts

pair of rectangles cut out of the shorts (approx 23cm x 28cm or 9 inches x 11 inches)

place the right sides together and stitch all the way around, leaving an opening (approx 5 or 6cm)

It isn't completely necessary but i usually zigzag around the edge

turn the bag out the right way by pushing one corner through the opening and then pulling the rest behind it. In the other bags I made I actually clipped off the corners so that they sat nicely when turned out the right way.

I filled the bags with 4 cups of wheat so that they were about half full. I always use four cups because I know how long they need to be microwaved in my microwave.

I sewed the bag closed using the machne, as this bag (and two others) were staying in my own home, I didn't bother to finish it off nicely, on the ones I gave away I top stitched around the edge to finish them off

I gave Miss 4 the fabric for this heat bag before I sewed it together and a packet of fabric markers. She spent quite a lot of time decorating the fabric for her teacher. When she was done I fixed the ink by ironing it according to the packet's instructions. I also washed the fabric, dried it and ironed it again, so that no excess ink would rub off onto the user.

I was very pleased with the end result; I'd made a personalised gift that cost me nothing but time and it was very practical (especially as the weather was cool at that time). Miss 4 was grinning from ear to ear as her teacher opened the present that she had helped to make.

Sandwich wrapper

Sandwich wrapper with a sandwich inside - sandwich was placed on the plastic side of the fabric, the non-Velcroed sides were folded in and then the Velcroed sides were folded in so that they held the whole lot shut.

Sewing the velcro to the sandwich/snack bag

sandwich/snack bag - nearly finished

I thought I'd start my new blog with a project that was both procrastination and practical. Now, I'm not much of a sewer but I happen to have one of my late mother-in-law's sewing machines and my mother lent me her overlocker. This was my first over locker project and I've learnt a few things from it.

I already use a lot of plastic containers in my girls' lunch boxes but I hadn't found a sandwich container that fit in with everything else. I knew I could buy these types of wrappers and bags from a a number of WAHMS but funding was really tight, so I bought some PUL fabric from ebay. I was able to make 2 sandwhich wrappers, 2 sandwich bags and a smaller snack bag from a piece of fabric that cost me about $6, including postage.  I used about 75cm of Velcro (hook and loop tape) but I was lucky enough to have that left over from another project.

I didn't have a pattern so I just tried putting a sandwich in the middle of an A3 sheet of paper and played with it until I was happy with the size. The sandwich wrapper turned out to be a great size, it's approximately 30cm x 30cm (12inches squared). I overlocked around the edges and then sewed some Velcro (hook and loop tape) to two opposite corners. The Velcro is approximately 8cm (3 1/2 inches) long. You can see that one is sewn almost all the way to the corner and the other is a couple of centimetres away from the corner. They're sewn on opposite sides of the fabric.

The sandwich bag used a rectangle of fabric that was 38cm x 21cm. When it's sewn up and Velcroed closed, the bag is 18cm x 21cm. Overall, it's too big and should be much closer to a finished size of 16cm or 17 cm squared. I overloked the bags closed on the outside so that the sandwiches (and their contents) wouldn't come into contact with the stitching. The snack bag measurements weren't important because I made it whatever size the left over piece of fabric was.

The PUL is easy to wipe clean or shake out if there are just crumbs but it can also be machine washed if it really gets grotty. I've been reading a lot about PUL and whether or not it should be used for this sort of thing. There are two schools of thought:1) PUL is not certified to be food grade and if food is stored in there when it's hot (such as a sandwich in a lunchbox left in a car or in the sun) toxins may leach out of the PUL into the food (there's no solid evidence that this will or won't happen). 2) As long as the PUL is not left to get hot, it's safe. I decided to go with the second school of thought but there are apparently other fabrics that might be used instead, I just don't know what or where to get them from, or they were VERY expensive by comparison.

I need to go back and re-stitch the ends of my overlocking because i hadn't realised that it would come appart, the same way as most stitching will, if you don't secure the ends properly. Oh well, not bad for a first overlocker project.