Flannel Hand Warmers

 
A few days ago a friend of mine sent me this link from Little House Living.  Little House Living is a nice blog that features a lot of fun things.

 http://www.littlehouseliving.com/homemade-hand-warmers.html

My friend said she thought of me when she saw these hand warmers.  Since then I have seen them posted on Facebook a few times, so I thought I would try to make them.  I had purchased a king sized flannel pillowcase at a thrift store for 99 cents for another project.  I will probably blog about that some time in the future.  In order to make my other project, I needed to cut the hem off of the pillowcase.  Being a person who doesn't like to waste anything, I cut the band into eight pieces.  The side seams were already sewn, so all I had to do was seam the bottom of each tube.  I had eight little pockets.  In the top of two of them, I put in some dry white rice and hand stitched the top shut.  I microwaved these two hand warmers for 40 seconds.  They were very warm but seemed slightly damp.  I wondered if the rice had some moisture in it.  I tried two more times and each time they seemed damp for just a little while.  So I filled the next two with lentils.  Then I used split peas and finally barley.  Each time the warmers seemed dampish.  I even heated the lentils in a dry frying pan to try to eliminate any moisture.   I don't know if it's the flannel, the microwave or the various fillers that caused the moisture.  So I found a small ziplock baggie.  The kind you put jewelry or spices in.  I opened one of the warmers and poured the rice into the plastic bag.  I reinserted the bag of rice into the flannel bag.  I sewed it shut again.  Then I poked a needle through to puncture the plastic bag.  I didn't want it to explode in the microwave.  This time the bag was dry and worked quite well.  I think these hand warmers are fun.  The heat lasts less than an hour but that may be long enough to take the chill off if you put them in your mittens or in your pockets.  I don't recommend the split peas.  They don't smell very pleasant.  I also read that you can put some dry white rice in one of those single unmatched socks you have lying around.  Just tie a knot in the top and microwave in the same manner. 

I will keep them on hand in case we need them, but I think mine will be used for bean bags for the kids to play with.