It’s cold outside.  It snowed again this weekend so we are covered in a blanket of white and the cold is deep enough to keep the snow around.  The sun shone today and everything is so bright when the sun shines on newly fallen snow.

The past couple of winters we’ve finally had a warm house due to finally having a furnace installed and most of the house insulated well.  But for the first 15 years of our life here it wasn’t always so warm in here.  I used blankets at doorways to keep the cold out, ran the dryer a lot, baked cookies to keep the oven going, and called my husband at work a lot complaining that it was COLD in here and he really should do something about it.  It’s a wonder the man still loves me 😀

I never did buy or make myself any draft dodgers but my Mom has one that I did a makeover on for her.

I originally shared this 2 years ago, but thought these cold winter days this would be a good one to share again.

This is a quick and easy makeover of a draft dodger, or draft stopper.  The purpose of a draft dodger is to keep cold air from coming in under doors that are not as tight against the weather as we might like them to be.  Like I said, I used blankets.  Blankets tend to get bunched up and kicked around or picked up and used as a blanket so a draft dodger that has only one purpose – to keep the cold from coming under the door – is a good idea if you have doorways that are less than airtight.

This particular draft dodger  has lived a long life as a faithful servant – keeping the cold air out.  And while the fabric is a little vintagey and the cat head rather cute in a folksy, country sort of way, it was time for an update.

Drop cloth fabric.  Cut the width twice the diameter of the draft dodger plus seam allowances and a little more for ease.  And of course the length as long as your finished draft dodger plus enough for seam allowances.  No rocket science or grand design here – I just guessed and went with it.  I basically just wrapped my fabric around the draft dodger and added a healthy amount to account for seam allowances and ease.  Fold in half lengthwise and stitch across one short end and the long side.  Leave opposite short end open.  Turn inside out so the raw edges are on the inside.

Insert old draft dodger into the new cover.  If you have added enough ease it will slide right in with no problem.

When you get to the cat head you have a couple of options.  You can use some brain cells and create a cover that is cat-head shaped and cover it – if you like the cat-head shape.  I wasn’t particularly fond of the cat-head shape and didn’t rally want to go to the work of figuring out a cover for it anyway.

So I ruthlessly cut the cat-head off.  (I dumped all the filler into the long round part of the draft dodger first)

Making the least mess possible I serged across the end of the cut end of the draft dodger.  If you don’t have a serger this could be whipped closed by hand with a needle and thread.

Finished pulling the cover over the draft dodger, turned the raw edges in and stitched across the end with my machine.  Done.  Probably took 15 minutes at the most.  Simplest project ever.

And just to show you how it looks at a door, here it is against my laundry room door.

You could totally make one from scratch by making the casing and filling it with rice or beans.  This works better than a blanket – trust me!

Do you have any spots in your house that need a draft dodger?  On really cold nights we sometimes still put a blanket at the front door cause sometimes cold gets too deep for even the best insulated doors.  I guess I really should go ahead and make a draft dodger to have on hand!

Jill