Draught/draft excluder pattern

There was a cute free one at

but the page isn't loading for me right now. It had blocks of pine trees (flying geese basically) and houses (any nice 6" house would do). There you go.... just do your own thing.... I am going to fill mine with plastic pellets and stuffing. What are you going to use?

-- Jo in Scotland

Jo, plastic pellets like they use in bean bag chairs? what if a few of them get out on the floor, eeeeeeeek. those things are nasty if ingested by anyone cuz they float and rarely, if ever, leave the stomach. who needs those in there all their life, not man nor beast. who knows what icky probs they could cause in life. just my two cents, tis possible i dont know what i'm talking about as well. jeanne

I think those are called "styrofoam peanuts" here and I don't keep them in the house because Sasha used to enjoy eating those. I have little plastic hard pellets the size of a lentil, which I use for bean bag toys. I had those in mind. I tried sand once, but it came through the holes in the seamline, and it got rather damp as well. This _is_ Scotland after all.

-- Jo in Scotland

oh cool, those sound perfect, never heard of those before now. somehow i didnt think you'd be silly enough to use the polystyrene ones but i had to reply just in case. whewwww, jeanne

I "googled" and came up with:

I make mine a little differently in that I use:

1. Inner core (skinny tube of muslin ('bout 1" to 1-1/2" diameter) filled with aquarium gravel I bought on the cheap at the local Pet store. Sew ends shut. This provides the weight to keep it in place.
2. Wrap the above in layer(s) of polyester quilt batting, till it's big enough around to cover the area where the air comes in. This stops the draft. Then wrap a layer of muslin around and hand stitch closed (big stitches just to keep it held together.) (Or you can make another tube and try to stuff the %#$*&& thing down into it! )
3. Sew a pretty cover (quilt block or print to match the rest of the room) by making a larger tube about six or so inches longer than part 2. Tie a ribbon around the two ends to keep the insides from falling out.

The advantage to this method is that you can remove the cover and wash it (or replace it with other fabric color/design) when needed, plus it has both the weight to hold the draft-dodger in place and the fluff needed to keep the drafts out.

Just my 2 cents worth. ME-Judy

A funny (not at the time) story about those tiny styrofoam pettets. Back in 1972 I won an 8 foot tall stuffed Beagle, he lived in the spare room. One day when my son was about 3, I wasn't feeling well and asked him to play quietly in the spare room with his toys. He was VERY quiet while I was occupied in the bathroom. About a half hour later I found what had kept him so quiet. He had opened a little hole in the stuffed animal's head and emptied a couple gallons worth of teeny tiny styrofoam balls all over the room, on the floor, on the furniture, and worst of all on the 2 bed's chenille bedspreads. OMG I had never seen such a mess.

Denise

QI