Sew & Soothe: Stitch your own custom microwavable heating pads

1. Intro: Welcome to this fun course on sewing microwavable heat packs. You can use these packs to soothe sore muscles or even warm you up when you're feeling chilly. My favorite use is to put these at my feet on a cold winter's night. But you can also cool them off in the freezer and use them as cold packs too. They are excellent for self care or gifting. Hey folks, my name is Lucy, and I run a small business called Balbuce Creations, where I design dolls, puppets, and plushies for embroidery and sewing machines. I also have a degree in physics and worked as an engineer for many years. These microwaveable heating pads have quite a few horror stories on the Internet. But because of my background, I understand how microwaves work and that helped me unravel the problems people were having and how to avoid them, which is one of those rare times that my degree in physics is actually coming in handy whether you're an experienced soist or you're just starting out. I've built this class for inspiring you to make something warm and cozy at your own level. If you're not comfortable with a needle and thread just yet, I also have a no so option that's super quick to make. Over the next few lessons, I'll guide you through selecting microwave safe materials and teach you how to sew, fill, and even create your very own custom hot and cold packs. And then we'll spice it up with the Roman therapy and embroidery if you're feeling adventurous. So go and dust off that sewing machine you bought during the pandemic. Yeah, you know who you are. Let's get started. 2. Project: Our class project is a simple heat pack that you will sew. Then just snap a photo with your cell phone and share it to the class project section. This is a beginner friendly sewing project. Or there's even a quick no So version I'll show you. But if you want to make your heat pads more fancy, I'll give you ideas for that. Just follow all the skills you learn in this class and you'll be able to make good decisions on the microwave safety of your own custom design. After you've sewn a heat pack, take a photo and share it to the class project section. It doesn't matter if you make something basic, like a filled sock or something super fancy with your favorite coordinated print, fabrics and embellishments. You can stage your photo to look real Purdy or just snap a quick shot on your cell phone that's fuzzy and upside down. I don't care. Just share your project. It helps you gain confidence about your skills. When you share it, you'll find two PDF documents in the class resource section. One is a list of tools and supplies, so you don't need to take notes while you watch, you can just download that list. The second document has the safety instructions for how to heat up these packs. You can copy and paste this text into your own gift tag or follow the links down here to a template in Canva where you can create a custom gift card with the instructions. I think these make great gifts for holidays, birthdays, even a care package when someone is under the weather. I'm trying to make your gift giving job a bit easier with these instruction cards. 3. Choosing Fabric & Threads: Your fabric should be 100% cotton. You could use other natural fibers like wool or silk, but those can smell bad when heated stick with cotton or even linen. Just make sure somewhere on the label of your fabric it says 100% cotton. If you have fabrics that are sitting around that you no longer know if they're cotton or not, then don't use them. You need to be 100% sure that it's 100% cotton or linen, even on this one here. These are just fabric samples that a friend gave to me. But it's got 100% cotton on there, so I know what the fabric is. Also, make sure you're buying your fabric from a reputable source so that you know it is what they say it is. There are some places that I've purchased online that said they were a particular fiber and I know through doing a burn test that they weren't, they were synthetic. And you cannot use synthetics in the microwave, buy from a reputable source. Make sure it says 100% cotton or linen or whatever natural fiber you're using. I also like to pre wash my fabrics before I use them in microwavable stuff, just to make sure that any sizing or chemical treatment is removed before I'm using it. Your threads also need to be a natural fiber, and the easiest fiber to get ahold of is 100% cotton. 100% cotton thread is used quite frequently in the quilting industry. Anywhere you can buy thread, you will find either machine or hand quilting thread, that is that 100% cotton. Just look for that on your spools. It should say it somewhere. Here's a cotton here. Just look different places. This one, the whole, you can't really see but it was 100% Pema cotton is what that says there. This is from Hobby Lobby's brand. I mean, you can buy it anywhere. Again, somewhere on the spool machine, quilting 100% cotton. Just look around. If you have a thread and you can't identify what it is, then I would not use that because a lot of all purpose threads are polyester. Also on thread can be used. This is a 48 on thread. It says right there on is a natural fiber. It's manmade, but it's a natural fiber and this is okay for the microwave as well. However, it is shiny and it breaks much more easily. You can use it, but again, the 100% cotton machine quilting thread is going to be stronger and better. Of course, it comes in all different colors, including the variegated ones. It comes in different thicknesses. And what we use for our thread, don't forget, we also have to use in the bobbin, both the top thread and the bobbin in the bottom. Bobbin in the bottom has to be that same 100% cotton or some kind of natural fiber. And I actually load up my bobbin with some cotton thread and I write cotton on the bobbin with a Sharpie. And then by the time it runs through the machine that usually gets wiped off. But that's okay. The pre wound bobbins are usually polyester but you can find cotton pre wound if you're really into that, look for Rophyl as well as superior threads. They do have cotton bobbins, pre wound or at least on a spool that you can wind yourself. But usually it's just easier to just take your top thread, wind it up on your bob, and if you're just sewing, that's something we always do. So just remember to use a natural fiber thread. 100% cotton is the easiest to find in the most colors. You can also get ray on, but it's not quite as strong. If you have a wool or a silk or something like that, you could use those, but they're harder to find. You're going to have less color choices. 100% cotton is just the cheapest and easiest to get ahold of. 4. Choosing Fillers: Many people use rice to fill their packs, but there are other options out there, which I'll mention in this lesson. We'll also talk about adding natural fragrance for an aroma therapy experience. There are a variety of natural fillers you can put in your pack. Check the supply list. You can download from the class resource section. There's ten different fillings listed in there. Rice is the cheapest and easiest filling to use, and it's a really good one. A lot of people use it. But it will eventually break down and start to smell kind of funky after a while. Although I will say that Jasmine or a basmati rice smell really nice in the beginning. But even eventually, they'll start to smell funny and need to be replaced. Rice is cheaper in bulk, but having a big bag of rice sitting around for a long time can attract pests. So it's best to only buy an amount you can use or keep it sealed when you're not using it. And that applies to any of the edible grain fillers. So if you're using a filler that's also a food, keep them safe from bugs or mice by storing in plastic bags or keep them in the freezer, so you always have a cold pack ready to go. There are a ton of other fillers that work, and each have advantages and disadvantages. I've got a few of them here. This is the rice. You could also use beans or lentils. They have a nice feel like a bean bag. I prefer cherry pits because you can machine wash them and they don't go bad. Plus, they smell like cherry pie when you heat them up. They must be special ordered and they're expensive, so that is a disadvantage. Walnut shells are also machine washable, like the cherry pits. None of the others on the list can go through the washer and dryer, just the cherry pits or the walnut shells. Many people like flax seed because it holds heat really well and it conforms to the body nicely. But flax will eventually go rancid and you'll need to replace that filler. You'll also see corn on the list that is dried feed corn, not popcorn. It's that corn you see in bird seed or squirrel. Food that you can buy at the feeds stores. That one gets hotter than the others, almost too hot. So you have to be really careful. If you're using corn, don't microwave it too long. Choose a filler that's easy for you to obtain and use. There's really no right or wrong filler as long as it's one of the ones, the natural ones we're talking about. Everyone has their own preference on which one they think is best, that suits their needs best. So use whatever you prefer that's on that list. You can add herbs or essential oils to your filler. For a scented heat pack, just put a few drops of essential oil into your filler and stir it in, or add about one teaspoon of dried herbs into your filler. Lavender or rose petals are nice, but so is more herbal sense like thyme, rosemary, or even mint. You can even create a custom blend for an aromatherapy heating pad, which is perfect for a stress headache. I'd like to add a note here about using synthetic fragrance like perfume, or even fragrant soils that are intended for candles or cosmetics. I would like to persuade you to not add those. I worked in cosmetic chemistry for a few years, and I worked with a lot of fragrances, which I can't stand to be around now because I'll get headaches or breathing problems from them. Why sully all that natural fiber and filler with a chemical fragrance, stick to the natural oils and herbs for a more relaxing experience. Especially when you're giving these as gifts. Because we never really know what other people are sensitive to when you're filling up your bag. Be careful not to overfill it because we want it to be sloshy like a bean bag rather than super full like a balloon. That way it will conform to the body better. And I'll show you what that looks like when we make the project pretty soon. Now you know about ten different kinds of fillers that are used to fill your stitched heat packs, which are all microwave safe and can also be used in the freezer for a cold pack. We also covered how to add central oils or dried herbs for fragrance, and also why synthetic fragrance is not such a great idea. 5. Making: Now we're getting to the heart of how to actually sew these heat packs. And it's so easy I'll demonstrate how to sew a rectangular pillow form, that will be the skin of our heating pad. But first let's see the super simple no version for the nos version of a heating pack, just find a sock that's made from natural fibers. It can be cotton or wool. I'm actually using some cotton stock inet that comes on a roll and it's used under casts. When people have broken bones, it's 100% cotton. And then you fill it with your filler and tie off both ends with cotton twine. It doesn't get any easier than that, but this is really a sewing class. So let me demonstrate how to sew a rectangular heat pack in this lesson, as well as how to fill it and close it so the filler won't leak out. You want to cut out two pieces of fabric that are right sides together, and I do suggest you pre wash your fabric. That removes any sizing or chemical treatment that may be on the fabric. You don't even need a pattern. I'm going to use just the printout from the class. A piece of copy paper, notebook paper. That's going to actually be my pattern, because I want this to be about the eight, a two by 11 size. But any size is fine here. And I'm just going to go ahead and finish cutting. There's no right or wrong size now. These two pieces are going to be the skin of my bag. See that? Now I'm going to pin them together. We'll speed through that. Then I'm going to place pins where I want my opening to be. Now you can leave the entire one of the edges open and not sew that yet, and use that for your filling. Put your filling in there or you can make a smaller opening from here to here. And that makes it a little bit easier if you're going to hand stitch because the opening will be tucked in. But I'm going to go ahead and leave everything open and I'm going to close this up on the machine. If you're going to top stitch, and we'll talk about that in a minute, then you can leave the entire side open, but if you're going to hand stitch it closed, then a smaller opening is probably going to be easier. I'll take that to the sewing machine and we're going to sew all the way around these three sides. Then you sew the two pieces together using a two inch or 58 seam allowance. You want a generous seam allowance here and set your machine for a short stitch length around 2 millimeters. That way your filler won't escape through your seams. Start at one side of the opening and stitch until you get to the other side of the opening. When you get to the corners, just pivot and sew the next side. We want to be sure the seam allowance is wide enough because we don't want the fabric to unravel and create a hole where the filler is going to leak out. When you get to the opening, again, just backstitch or tie off the threads and our sewing is done. If you want to, you can sew the seam again and use a zigzag stitch to prevent your fabric edges from unraveling. So I've got a line of straight stitching and then a zigzag stitch just to the outside of it. And that will prevent your fabric from unraveling too much and getting into the seam. That's an option. If you're sewing your own custom shape or size, make sure that your opening is at least 2 ". We've got much more than 2 " here, but 2 " is really the minimum to be able to turn these right side out for a bigger bag like this. 3 " or more is better. So I'm going to turn this right side out. You can clip your corners if you want to, but on these I don't typically worry about it because I don't want nice sharp corners. I like the nice rounded corners on something like this. And then just turn it right side out, then you just fill your bag with your chosen filler. Do yourself a favor and if you have a small opening, use a funnel. A jar funnel is even better, but a rolled up piece of paper can work as a funnel to I've got a large opening here, so I'm just going to pour mine in. And I've already got all of mine in there. You don't want to fill it two, you want it about to 23 full. Mine is about full to here right now. And that's a little more than half because you don't want it to be overblown. You want it to be able to conform it. She needs to feel like a bean bag. And we also need to leave room for our seam at the top. For that, I'm just going to tuck in my edges like this. If you need to use tape or pins or whatever you need to do, go ahead and do that. Now, a word of caution here, when you take this over to the sewing machine and I'll show you how that works. But you want to make sure that none of your filler gets into your sewing area here. Okay? I'm still getting mine pinned. So let me do that fast motion. I'm going to be using a ruler or some kind of flat thing when you sew. Because that way you can push the filling out of the way. Really get it out of the way there. And then press it down on the bed of your sewing machine, and you'll see me doing that. So if you're wondering what this is for, this is to keep that filler pushed all the way out of the way so that it's not going to get caught under my needle and break a needle. We can close this one of two ways you can hand stitched your class resources have a diagram of the ladder stitch, which is the most invisible of the hands stitch seems if you're filling with rice, I suggest using the machine stitching to be sure those grains of rice don't escape. You want to set your stitch length to something short like 1.5 or 2 millimeters and you'll be fine. You only need to stitch the side where the opening is, but it can also look nice to stitch all the way around if you wanted to be sure to only fill your bag half full if you're going to top stitch all the way around so you have plenty of room for the top stitching. Always be sure there is no filler where you're sewing because it can break your needle if you hit a piece of that filling, that's all there is to it. We have one heating pack that's ready to be used. In this lesson, you learned how to sew a rectangular bag, turn it right side out, then fill it and close it up. This is perfectly good for our class project, so feel free to share yours and show what you made. We also talked about a no so version, but let's now take it up a notch and get fancy in the next lesson. 6. Customize: This class is about making custom heating pads. So let's talk about a few ways to make your projects a little bit extra. Let me show you some options for shapes and sizes. Plus you'll learn about making the bag softer and adding embroidery so it's safe but also very customized. Feel free to create your own patterns for your heating packs. This is a simple project and if you can draw a shape, you can create a sewing pattern for this. Just make sure you leave an opening that's big enough to turn and fill your bag. Squares and rectangles are pretty straightforward. You could also do circular shapes. You could do tubular shapes. You could do different like kidney beans, hearts, things like that. These are just little hand warmers. If you want to make your heat pad a little more luxurious, you can line them with a cotton batting. This is a product called Rap in Zap. It's made by Pelon and it is microwave safe. It's just a cotton batting and it makes them softer like a pillow on the side that you use the batting on. It also holds the heat in a little bit longer because we're insulating that warm filling. And it's good for ice packs because it's still cold but it's not super freezing. I like to do it where I line one side with the batting and then the other side is just fabric. So I have a warmer colder side and then a softer, not as intense side. These long tubular ones are nice when you have like a shoulder pain or something, you could wrap it around your neck. You can make them longer too. You can add channels to your heating packs by top stitching. After you've turned the bag right side out and closed it, I like to leave the channels open so the top stitch seams don't reach the edges. But you can also fill and close the bag and then move the filler out of the way and top stitch these channels too. By the way, top stitching is what we call it when we're stitching on the right side of the fabric, usually for a decorative effect or to hold layers together. It looks great if you make packs in different sizes out of coordinating fabrics and then stack them up for gifting. There's a nice bow on top. Put your little safety tag on there. You can embellish the surface of your hot and cold packs too. But you need to use the same rules mentioned earlier and stick to your natural fibers. You can do embroidery by hand or machine, but make sure you use cotton thread or other natural fibers for both the top thread as well as your bobbin. These have texts that are machine embroidered. If you're doing machine embroidery, you can either use the rappenzap as a lightweight stabilizer for less dense designs. Or you can buy a tearway stabilizer that Madeira makes called cotton soft. Using cotton stabilizer and threads mean you can do any of your machine embroidery designs on the surface of your bag and it will still be microwave safe. And if your hand embroidering, just use the floss made out of natural fibers and you'll be fine. Most of it is cotton floss anyway. If you're a quilter, of course you can piece and quilt your heat packs to create something beautifully customized. Beading is actually not recommended. Even though glass beads might be microwave safe, they can get really hot and cause burns on the skin when people use the heat packs. Plus we don't want our embellishments to be itchy or uncomfortable on the skin, so stick with soft and low profile designs if you're doing something on the surface. In this lesson, you learned how to make your project extra special by changing the shape and size. You learned about microwave safe batting for a softer feel, as well as a safe cotton stabilizer. If you're going to machine embroider to jazz up your project, maybe you can think of other ways to customize your hot and cold packs. Share your ideas in the class discussion area. That's a great place for it. As long as you follow the guidelines we've talked about, such as using natural fibers, you've got a whole bunch of options you can go with. 7. Safety: Before we go, I want to stress again about being safe with these heating pads in the microwave. We don't want to create a fire hazard for ourselves or others. Let's go over the safety points. Your fabrics need to be natural fibers. This is because some synthetics can melt in the microwave and it's also because the microwaves bounce around differently in the natural fibers versus the synthetic ones. Use your 100% cotton or linen to keep it safe and soft. It's very important that you put a cup of water in the microwave while you warm up your pads. This is because microwaves excite the water molecules and the energy will be focused on the water instead of the dry heat pack. That cup of water helps prevent scorching or fire. Also, only zap them for about a minute or two at a time and then check the heat level and heat another minute or two. I can't tell you exactly how long it takes to heat a bag because it depends on the type of filler you use, the amount of the filler, and also the power level of your microwave. The safest method is to try in 1 minute increments until you get the amount of heat you want, and then take note of how long it took for that particular heat pack. Do not absolutely do not leave them in the microwave for a long time and then walk away from it. To show you how serious I am, here's an old pack of mine and I was too lazy and didn't put the water in the microwave with it. It was all folded up. This is what happened. It got scorched all in one spot, which was all folded up. Luckily, I was close by and when I smelled something burning, I stopped the microwave before it caught fire. Use that water. And on that note, I'll mention that microwave ovens have hot spots. It won't get into the science of it here. If you're interested, go and Google Marshmallow Hot Spot Test for microwaves. It's really fun. But your bag will heat more evenly if you put the cup of water in the center of the turntable. And put the heat pack on the side so it rotates around and the energy is distributed more evenly. Let your heat pack take a ride on that little carousel and who have a good time. In the class resource section, you'll find a document that has some texts that you can copy to create your own little instructions if you're giving these as gifts. There's also a link to a Canva template if you go to Canva.com and you can change the background and your text and include that with your Pacs. If you're going to give them as gifts, you want to make sure that whoever you give them to is also aware of the safety instructions. If you're giving these as gifts, make sure that you give them a little card that has the instructions printed on it because you don't want them to catch their microwave on fire. That is not a very good gift that covers the safety precautions for this project. Use natural fibers and fillers. Don't leave them unattended in the microwave. Put a couple of water in there while you heat it and place them off center so they get a ride on that microwave carousel. Finally, if you're giving these as gifts because they are amazing gifts, grab the printable instructions or use the free template on canvas to make something in your own style so your loved ones are aware of the safety precautions as well. 8. Wrap up: Let's review everything you learned in this class so you can get started on your projects. First of all, you want to make sure you're using natural fibers and fillers on any sown project that will be going in the microwave. That's what we learned in lesson one. How to choose fabric and thread for microwave safe heating pads. 100% cotton fabric and thread is the easiest to find because the quilt industry uses it so often. And there are plenty of colors and patterns to choose from, but other natural fibers can be used as well. I like linen, it looks really nice. You also want to use natural materials to fill your packs. That could be rice beans, cherry pits, or other grains. You can download the supply list in the class resource section for a list of ten different fillers. In that lesson on fillings, we also talked about adding essential oils or herbs to add aromatherapy to your warming pads. Lesson three was the meat of the whole class. And it went pretty fast because these projects are quick and easy. Now, you have no excuse not to dust off that sewing machine and stitch up a few of these. You learned how to sew a simple rectangular bag and then fill it and close it up. You also saw an easier version of a cotton tube that you can tie the ends with cotton twine and not do any sewing at all. In lesson four, we talked about different ways to embellish using embroidery. Quilting was also mentioned, but beating is best avoided. And finally, in lesson five, you learned about the safety of microwaving stone goods. Always use that cup of water and position the heating pack so it heats evenly on the microwave turntable. That's all there is to it. Now, if you can do me not one, but two favors, I would be so grateful. The first favor is for you to fill in a class review and leave feedback. It only takes a few minutes and it really helps me to improve on future classes and topics when you give your honest review of this class. So go do that while the class is still kind of fresh in your mind. And the second favor is go and make some heating packs of your own and share what you made. Just snap a picture on your phone, on your cell phone, whatever. Share it to the class project section. It doesn't need to be some fancy staged photo with a beautiful cup of coffee and I'll gift wrapped. No, I mean, those photos are gorgeous and we'd all love to see those too. But even a quick snap with your phone of an imperfect project helps you gain confidence in what you're making and level up your skills. So I encourage you to share what you make and ask questions or ask for help in the class discussion area. That's what it's there for. Thank you so much for taking this class with me. I hope you learned something and had some fun while doing it. Happy stitching.