I finished the second of three draft stoppers yesterday. (No. 1 draft snake is here and draft snake no.3 is here)My plan is to make 2 draft stoppers in September and 1 in October. I am trying to do this inexpensively. But on this one, I did get picky about the details, and spent about $1 on fleece for the lady bugs and flowers. I had some fleece already, but needed pieces of red and yellow.
So, not as cheap, but this draft stopper is for the kitchen door to the deck. I spend a lot of time in the kitchen and I wanted something to remind me that spring and summer will indeed return.
I had a long strip of the green corduroy leftover from a lap throw for the family room (made several years ago). And the green actually goes quite well with our kitchen. I didn't plan that, it was just one of those serendipitous things. I still had some of that tattered comforter, as well as batting, for the innards of the snake. My fabric strip was wider than the last piece, so I went ahead and made this one quite fat.
Finishing the ends of the draft stopper
I did the ends differently than the last draft stopper. If you remember, the last one had candy-tied ends. This one, having less length in fabric, I decided to cap the ends in the same manner that I do the tops of fleece hats. For the first end, I flattened the fabric and made a straight across seam. Then I turned the fabric right side out.
I folded the pointy ends of that seam inward, towards each other, and tacked in place. This sort of squares off the ends. The final end, after stuffing, I did in the same manner, but sewed it all by hand. I made the straight seam with a whip stitch, then tacked the two pointy ends together.
To make this festive, I adorned the draft stopper with ladybugs and flowers made of fleece, and held on by velcro (so that I can wash the case when it gets dirty, without harming my spring decor pieces).
Making the decorative pieces
When I make something creative like this, I use everyday items for templates. For the ladybug body, I traced around a small coffee can lid. For the black ladybug head, I traced around a small votive candle. And for the dots, I had a large, circle hole punch, which didn't quite cut through the black, sticky back felt. However, it marked it well enough that I could cut them out with scissors.
The flower was a bit of a challenge at first. Then I thought to make a daisy-like flower using a heart-shaped cookie cutter. I traced hearts onto a sheet of white paper. At first, I tried 4 hearts, but that looked too much like a clover. Next I tried 6 hearts, but that made the flower too large for my fabric piece. Last I traced 5 hearts in a ring and they seemed to make the best flower. Then I cut out this paper flower and used it for a template for the yellow fleece.
You may wonder how I intend to hold my stoppers in place at the doors, without weights inside. I plan on either double-stick tape or velcro. Double-stick tape would be cheap. But velcro would allow me to align the draft snake easily after moving it to use these doors (which by the way, in the cold months, we don't use these doors all that much). For the draft snake I'll make in October (for the front door), I do plan on adding weight to it (with sand most likely). That door gets used a lot, and I want the weight of the snake to hold itself in place.
I'm making progress. It's little bit by little bit, in my efforts to make our house snug and cozy. I know I won't get to everything this year. But if each year I work a little more towards getting the house in shape for cold weather, it'll happen some year. My other task for this fall is to seal up the 4 remaining old windows in the house. One is a large sliding glass door. Any suggestions on how to make that one more snug? There are insulating drapes on it, but still it gets quite cold in that room.
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