A Handmade Season of Giving - Heart Hand Warmers
Michelle Burke
The saying goes, "Cold hands, warm heart." With these adorable heart hand warmers, you can have warm hands too! I decided last year that I was going to make as many gifts to give this year as possible. I am sharing my ideas for handmade gift-giving in this A Handmade Season of Giving blog series. I am excited to share these fun heart-shaped hand warmers with you today!
I found the Upcycled Heart Hand Warmers Tutorial to make these fun heart-shaped hand warmers awhile ago. Stephanie Woodson wrote the tutorial in her blog, Swoondson Says. In the tutorial, it says to use an old sweater which is a great up-cycling option, but I don't have any old sweaters. Instead, I decided to use some wool felt.
The wool felt is great because it doesn't unravel, so I sewed the hearts together leaving the seam allowance on the exterior of the hand warmers. Making these handwarmers this way, made this project just that much faster.
I also did a little hand applique on the front of each one. I did a more complicated design on one heart of the pair of hand warmers and then just a simple snowflake or heart on the other heart. The applique was a little time consuming, but once that was finished, the hand warmers came together very quickly.
The small heart that goes inside the larger heart is made of knit fabric (suggested in the tutorial) and filled with rice. Then if the outer heart gets dirty, it can be hand washed and used again! I warm the interior hearts in the microwave for 1 minute on high, insert them into the outer wool felt heart and put one in each pockets just before heading out on a walk with my dog. As one hand gets cold from holding the leash, I can switch hands, putting the cold one in a pocket warmed by one of these cute hand warmers. This is a perfect gift for someone who walks or does other cold-weather activities.
One small change I made on the pattern is I cut off 1/4" from the straight edge on each of the exterior back pieces. I did this because I didn't have to finish the edge since it wasn't going to unravel. In case you are wondering (like I did), I found that each interior heart took about a heaping 1/4 cup of rice to fill. It would be fun to make these with an old sweater, some knit fabric or even some quilting cotton. I think with a knit or cotton fabric, the heat may be lost faster, but I may be wrong about that.
Giving a set of hand warmers as a gift to someone who is special to you with a note that said something like, "Now you can have warm hands to go with your warm heart" would be perfect! I hope you are inspired to give someone who is special to you these adorable handmade heart hand warmers!