Making Christmas Presents Part 1 Tutorial...

 

 

I wanted to make Christmas gifts for different family members this year.  I normally only buy for the kids in the family and for my parents and in laws.  I came across a really cute pin on Pinterest with a tutorial on making Foot Warmers.  I knew automatically which family member would love this so I made my own...with a few small changes.

 

For the original tutorial you can follow the link below.

http://www.craftsewdesign.com/2010/12/foot-warmer-tutorial.html

 

 

I had most of the cotton material on hand for this using fabric scraps from other projects but I did buy about a yard of black fleece and a yard of red fleece.  I bought two bags of white rice 3lb each at only $1.50 a bag.  This is a super easy, money saving and useful gift/project.  Even if you have to purchase the cotton fabric, you don't need very much per foot warmer.

 

First I measured an old..I mean old, why do we still have these, pair of Jerm's shoes.

The length measured at 13 inches, and the width was 10 inches. I added an inch to for hem allowances.

 

Now, I honestly don't know how fleece will hold up in the microwave but I do know that cotton is a safe fabric choice.  I wanted to use the fleece because of two reasons, one fleece eliminates the need for batting to insulate the warmth, and two because fleece is super soft.  So I changed the design a bit, I made a separate rice bag out of cotton fabric.

 

 

 Since the outside of the foot warmer was going to measure 13in x 10in once sewn together, I made the rice bag 12in x 9in. I cut the fabric 13in x 10in  to allow for a seam allowance, then placed the two printed sides together and sewed up three of the sides.

 

I filled the bag halfway up with the white rice. and then finished sewing up the fourth side.  I used about half my 3lb bag of rice.  I may have filled it a little too much...but the bag only cost $1.50 so meh not too worried.

 

Now for the foot warmer I measured a 7in x11in  piece of cotton fabric for the top cover of the warmer, and two 14in x11in  pieces of the black fleece for the main part of the foot warmer.  I hemmed the bottom edge of the cotton then pinned it to one piece of fleece sewing the remaining three sides (top, left and right ).

 

I then pinned the second piece of the black fleece to the already sewn together fleece and cotton. I placed both pieces of black fleece together,  You can't really see it in the picture above but there are two pieces of black fleece on the bottom and then the inside out piece of cotton.  I then flipped the cotton piece over the fleece so that the UK design was facing up.

 

 

Now you can place the cotton rice bag between the two pieces of black fleece.  But, how to keep the heat contained and the bag inside?  I added a strip of Velcro to the inside of each piece of black fleece.

 

The finished project looks a little like this on the bottom edge.

 

The Red Arrow: Where you slip your feet.

The Orange Arrow: The top layer of the black fleece, soft and warm on the bottoms of your feet.

The Yellow Arrow: The Velcro closure ad the edge of the foot warmer.

The Green Arrow: The cotton rice filled bag.

The Blue Arrow: Very hard to see, bottom layer of the black fleece.

 

Just a few changes made to an amazing idea.  I am very excited to give these to family members for Christmas and I hope that they will be as pleased with them as I am excited about them! By the way, you simply have to microwave the rice bag for about 2-3 mins, for at least an hour of piggy (feet) warmth.