So glad you asked :) New "thing" to me too

Sewing ham - it's a oblong sort of ham-roast shaped thing that's made of fabric that is stuffed very firmly (apparently with sawdust, I learned something new) and it's used mostly in clothing construction to help you press curved/shaped areas of clothing, like shoulders, darted areas, etc.

Recently I was in a Domino's Pizza store. The young man had his cell phone on his shoulder, handled & processed my VISA card, found & handed me a pen to sign the receipt. I'm sure many others had handled that pen. He handled the cell phone repeatdly, never putting it down and then I watched him put his bare hands into the shreaded cheese container to make my pizza. When I told him that cell phone had to be contaminated with germs, he told me he was talking to this mother.

I believe they are only surface washable.

I wouldn't put it into a microwave - I would be worried about causing a fire. Vacuum and place in the sun would be my choice of methods

If it were mine, I'd clean it and then put it into a plastic bag and into the freezer for a day or so. I don't care for any little critters and the freezing will kill them, just in case. (I don't have a microwave.)

Spray it good with Lysol and put it in the sun until dry. Things in thrift stores alot of times come from nice houses and what you buy in stores are stored in store rooms and container ships and come from overseas factories. Unless someone in house has issues with low immunity, I would not be too worried about it. Clothes you can wash but they are usually clean too.

I would take a spray cleaner that is disinfectant and cleaner combined. The kind that comes in a concentrate and you put a little in with some water , shake thoroughly, then spray.
Then I would set in the Sun to get the benefit of the Sun's power of getting all possible gems, ect, that the cleaner missed.
I use the cleaner from the concentrate, and it works wonderfully!
Good luc!
Mariah

The sawdust will expand and almost explode of you really wet it---it's like a hairstylists head form for wigs---I have seen one explode and it's not a pretty sight and one h---of a mess to clean up---don't think the dryer would hurt much because we used to put them under a hairdryer to dry the wigs---good luck

Good find. Don't try washing it. I ruined one that way and almost ruined my washing machine. Treat the cover as you would treat an upholstered piece. Maybe now that younger girls are sewing, hams and seam rolls will become more available but for a while now they've been hard to find where I live.