Saturday, May 28, 2011

Just a few tips on sewing a Wonder Box

I overcast the seams on mine. 

The heavier the weight the 100% cotton fabric is the more of it's shape it will hold.

When I made mine, I purchased a huge bean bag chair from Savers thrift store. It was one of those oldies from the 70's or 80's. It was vinyl and so big I had a had time getting it into the trunk of my car. It ended up filling

6 retained heat cookers. 

Those old bean bag chairs are hard to find, so use packing peanuts that you purchase at the UPS store instead.


When you purchase the packing peanuts, you will stuff the top first and it will be big and full. Then stuff the bottom with all that is left in the bag 4 cubic foot bag from the UPS store.

Sew or overcast the opening closed. Now crunch up the filler until you have smaller pieces or pellet sizes. Your preference.

The easiest way to stuff it to take a canning funnel and tape it to the opening and stuff the peanuts through the opening in the funnel. You WILL have a lot of static build up from the packing peanuts, and they will cling to your hand and arm. I wasn't able to figure out how to solve this problem. I ended up washing my hands and arms to release the static, and then starting over and over again until I had the cooker stuffed.

If anyone else comes up with a solution, please post it so others can learn from your experience.

Also, not a sewing tip, but a cooking tip. Go buy a Emergency Blanket and wrap it around the cooker when you have your food inside. This reflects the heat right back into the cooker!

You must use 100% cotton, like broadcloth, flannel, mattress ticking, or pillow ticking. My best one I made was from some mattress ticking, you know the kind... white with some blue stripes. It is sturdy, and really holds the shape.

I made others out of broadcloth and flannel. They were cuter than the striped thing.

They are great too use, as was demonstrated in our class. I put the food in at 10am, and at 8pm, we opened them up and the food was still piping hot.

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