Heat-pack pocket make

A while ago I had a plan, a plan to do something with my lavender I grow in my potted courtyard garden. Lavender is one of my all time favourite healing fragrances. I know it's commonly used and readily available,but despite that I have a real love of it and a soft spot in my heart for this divine plant, flowers and scent. 

So, I picked some of my own grown (seen in the bathroom photo above) and waited for it to dry out. Patience together with an amazon order here for a bigger stock of flowers paid off as yesterday I was able to make my 'secretly desired in the back of my mind' heat pack. I got the idea from here a few weeks ago and had to be oh so patient for my flowers to grow and dry out.

So, here's what I did yesterday afternoon...

Gathered:

• Some rice and lavender in a ratio of 3:1
• Some old fabric from my stash, I chose to cut an old embroidered pillow slip and part of a tablecloth I had bought in a charity shop 
• An old doily from my stash - yes I am an old doily collector!
• Pinking scissor and some normal ones

Simply cut out a shape you fancy, I copied my inspiration and used a dinner plate to make a two round shapes with a pencil marking at the back of the fabric. Cut your fabric with pinking scissors to try and stop the fabric from fraying after you have sewn the pieces together.

Hand sew a doily onto one piece (or on both if you like) of the right side of the fabric.

Then, machine sew the two wrong sides of the fabric facing each other together , leaving a gap to fill your heat pack pocket with rice and lavender.

I quite like the 1970's brown of the table cloth fabric that I chose, it feels rather retro and the old embroidered pillow slip is so soft and cotton dreamy. Perfect for cuddling up to on a cold evening.

As you can see I had some pale blue cotton thread in my bobbin and white cotton threaded through my machine and I quite like that the blue shadows some of the embroidered blue of the pillow slip.

Remember not to sew all the way round and to leave a reasonable space to pour your uncooked rice and lavender into. I filled my bag up by about half, I guess it's up to you as to how much you'd like to fill it up by. Once this was done I continued to sew by machine to complete the circle.

And voila... 

A little round heat pack pocket for popping into the microwave ( I heated mine for 2 minutes on 850W high) which was more than adequate to warm my cold toes after a windy cold cycle at 8pm last night. I just LOVE this little pocket and even had it's fragrance wafting in the room as I slept last night with it tucked in our bed.

Such a sweet gift idea too I think, something handmade and personal for a love one no matter what the time of year. 

Well, I hope that might have inspired some of you too? If you don't have a sewing machine you can do this by hand stitching, just make sure there are no gaps left in-bewteen your stitches to stop rice escaping into your bed :o)

Last but, not least I had to show you a photo of my poppies which are really floating my boat at the moment. How divine are these?

See you all very soon 

xox