Rice Bag

This is another easy project that makes nice gifts. Make sure your fabrics are natural to lessen the risk of melting or worse, fire in the microwave.

I like to make mine up as a little set, the rice bag itself, a washable sleeve to slip it into and a drawstring bag to keep it all in. This one is a nice purple flannel.

For those who have never used a rice bag, you warm the inner part in the microwave just like you do any other heat pack, then I slip it into the washable cover before use.

I've made tons of these over the years, in all sorts of prints and solids, enjoyed by older folks and children alike.

Tasty Thursday: The Magical Loaf Studio

Choose from the vegan ingredients you have on hand, check the boxes, click submit and you've got dinner under control courtesy of The Magical Loaf Studio!

Waste Not Want Not Wednesday: Legwarmers From a Felted Sweater

I got hurt at work and the doctor's orders are to stay at home with the wound open to the air. But we keep the house a comfortable temperature for walking around in flannel pajamas or sweats. How can I keep my knees exposed and not have my legs cold? I needed some nice wool legwarmers. So off to Goodwill I went on the way home from the doctor. Hey - he said I could stop for my prescription, what was one more stop? It was something I needed to convalesce.

This is a nice, heavy Ralph Lauren wool sweater. I washed and dried it when I got home to be sure it was felted all the way down. It had clearly been donated because the previous owner had begun the felting process. ;)



In this first photo you can see where I've begun to pick the sleeves off stitch by stitch.




The second photo shows the sleeves-cum-legwarmers, a small pile of wool bits which went into my stuffing bag, and the leftover body of the sweater. Anyone have a suggestion for what that should become? I'm thinking of trying either mittens or slippers. What do you think?

Travel Tip Tuesday: Headed to Colorado?

For money saving deals in the Denver/Boulder area visit Mile High on the Cheap.

Hats Made While Waiting for Word From the Surgical Team

I made these hats while at the hospital with Dad. He is home and doing well.



These thirteen baby hats will be donated to Online Angels. There was another of the pink with little yellow accent tags but I gave that to my sister-in-law to give to her daughter who just found out she is expecting a baby girl.



The two multi colored adult hats will also go to Online Angels. The brown ones are for my bald spouse who works in a cold environment and finds that nothing keeps a bald head warm like alpaca and alpaca/wool blends. There was a third brown hat but it was put into use before I got the chance to take this photo.

The pink & multi-colored yarns were from OA auctions. The rainbow is a little ball I had left of a favorite yarn of mine. The brown alpaca was purchased for this specific purpose as baby it is cold outside. ;) The black chenille is more salvage yarn from the hat I made for Mom that had a thread snap and I could not repair it. The red sparkly is a little ball I had left from making myself Valentine's Day leg and wrist warmers in 2007. The little yellow tags on a thin string was bought out of the Target dollar bins on impulse and has sat around for years because I had no clue what to do with it. Glad I finally found a use and it is not sitting here mocking me any more.