Settling and Sitting | rice pack time

As I've settle into life as a graduate student, I've done just that: settled. No more dancing for a couple hours in the evening or walking to and from classes, hiking to the dining hall for meals or going on evening strolls with my friends. I just sit. I sit and read papers. I sit and summarize them. I sit and listen in class. I sit and review the lecture after class. I sit and prepare for group presentations. I sit and hear other people give them. Don't get me wrong; I'm loving grad school. It's just my back that isn't so much. Apparently it doesn't like sitting as much as me.

Well, it came to a head a couple weeks ago when I could barely sit still through our women's Bible study with the twingeing pain, so I arrived home and set to work. It was rice pack time. I followed SewBon's Hot and Cold Pack Tutorial and simply switched out the handles for ties. Now in just one minute and forty-five seconds standing by the microwave, I can have a cozy heating pad to tie around my lower back. And I get to enjoy my fabric every time I pull it out!

Tutorial Review:

The tutorial has lovely photos to follow, all the perfect measurements, and is quite simple to complete! I struggled a little filling each compartment with rice as I went. The rice kept slipping into the line of sewing and making my lines jagged and ugly. I pulled it out once or twice and decided to sew the lines and fill later (since there are little gaps at either end). This worked, but I spent quite a bit of time shaking rice through little cracks and mostly ended up with it weighted at either end of the pack. As I use it, this becomes more emphasized. I would suggest filling each section a little less full as you go and sewing almost all the way, leaving perhaps a centimeter at both ends. Even with these little difficulties, I've been seriously considering whipping up another one that I can leave in my office at school. The rice pack really does work like a charm!