Hot Water Bottle Covers
I made some hot water bottle covers from polar fleece to replace the stupidly designed ones we had previously.
I am very much a fan of the hot water bottle as a personal heater - throughout winter I’ve been known to use one every night and now that I work from home I’ve been partial to filling one up every morning too!
The hot water bottle cover I had though was a stupid design - the top pulls over the bottle and has velcro to keep it shut but they’d put the scratchy hook side of the velcro facing outwards with the soft loop side inwards so if they moved out of alignment I’d get scratched or caught on my clothing which enraged me every day.
So during the brief respite we had here in Melbourne between lockdowns 5 and 6 where we were able to get out of the house and go feel the fabric at the fabric shop I was able to get some polar fleece on sale for half price! I took it as a sign to finally fix the problem, despite winter being nearly over!
I didn’t use a pattern for this design because I couldn’t find one that was double-lined. My grandma had made a hot water bottle cover using polar fleece as the inner layer when I was a teenager and it was the best I’d ever had as I can still fully heat the water without being too hot to handle with the extra insulation. I decided to make both layers polar fleece this time so it was nice and soft on the outside too.
I first lay the fabric out 4-layers thick and roughly measured the shape I wanted with chalk. Then I cut around it and then paired up and clipped the two sides (two layers each).
I then sewed straight across the top which would form the opening of the hot water bottle bag.
I turned this right-side out first so that the opening would be finished nicely and sewed straight across to define the channel where the ribbon would go. I then sewed the two sides together all the way around.
Now when I turned it all right side out I tested the fit and the bottle fit beautifully! I had some ribbon from some flowers I’d saved that would go well with the colour so I tied it around a safety pin and threaded it through the channel left in the top.
I pulled the ribbon tight and this hot water bottle cover was all done!
I made a second cover for my other half - this one has polar fleece on the inside for the insulation and a much more fun print on the outside! We could now enjoy the warmth without scratching ourselves or pulling all the threads in our clothing.
And finally just because I had the sewing machine out I quickly whipped up some plastic bag holders from old tea-towels. I didn’t take in-progress pictures so I haven’t made another post but I thought I’d include them as a bonus here. These are simply sewing the channels in the tops, sewing the sides together, turning inside out and finally threading some string and elastic through the channels.
Now I could pack the sewing machine away and tick a few things off the to-do list!