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Try this easy sewing project, it's an essential winter craft

With the colder days and nights setting in, now is the perfect time to learn how to make a draught excluder. They are an essential winter craft as they’re super useful, preventing cold air coming in under your doors and windows. Once you’ve made one and mastered how to do it, you’ll be able to sew them for all the rooms in your home in no time, improving insulation and making a much more comfortable, cosy place for you and your family.

The benefit of sewing your own draught excluder is that you can personalise the design by choosing fabrics of your choice and can make sure it’s the perfect fit for where you want to use it.

In this step-by-step tutorial for how to make a draught excluder, I'll show you how to make a simple draught excluder using some left-over fabric. You don’t need to be able to sew or even have a sewing machine to make this simple draught excluder and if you’re new to sewing, it’s a perfect beginner’s project.

I’ll be showing you how to sew a draught excluder but there are many ways to make one.

A no-sew version involves simply taking an old duvet and tying ribbons around it to keep it in a tube shape – its cosy thickness it will keep out the cold.

I have also seen draught excluders made from the leg of old jeans, an old pair of tights or old woolly jumper sleeves. They can be stuffed with newspaper, rice, lentils, the pad from an old cushion, polystyrene foam, peanuts, bubble wrap or carrier bags – whatever you have at home. I have made a laminate one, too, which is easy to clean.

In Australia, sand-filled draught excluders are called door snakes. All you need is a soft filling that is compact enough to prevent draughts and you can get started.

The brilliance of homemade draught excluders is that you can make them as long or as short as you wish. Perhaps you have a patio door or large window with a draught? If so you can make one to fit from an old curtain.

Perhaps you have sash windows? Growing up we had them and had thin draught excluders that fitted across the sash that prevented the wind whistling in. Stopping a draught is sometimes what you need more than turning the heating on: a simple draught stopper could save you money as well as stop cold air entering your home.

What you’ll need:

This is a great project for using up leftover fabric. If your fabric is thin then I would use two layers. Here I’m using upholstery velvet leftover from making cushions.

You want the draught excluder to cover the entire width of the door and be high enough to cover where the draught comes in if your door has a lip. You want your fabric to be 3/4 inch larger than your gap for the seam allowance. In this design the gap is is 33 inches, so the rectangle is 33 3/4 inches long by 12 inches high. Adjust according to your needs.

Now you have your dimensions cut out the fabric. If you’re not experienced at cutting straight lines draw them out with a pen or pencil on the back of the fabric as a guide.

Fold the fabric in half along the long length, with the right sides of the fabric facing each other and pin or clip the edges together until they are neatly lined up.

You can sew with a small stitch length of two on your sewing machine or hand sew with a small running stitch. If you don’t want to sew then you could use a seam tape like wonder web or even fabric glue.

If using a sewing machine, stitch along the long edge, backtracking at the start – 1/4 inch from the edge of the fabric. When you come to 1/4 inch from the end of the long side leave the needle down, lift the machine foot and swing the fabric to create a neat corner. Put down the machine pressure foot and carry on to the end, backtracking when you finish.

You need to have the length and one width sewn together.

Cut the corners of the rectangles on a diagonal (but don’t accidentally snip your stitching) to make it easier to poke the corners out.

Turn your sewing inside out so the right side of the fabric can now be seen. Push out the corners until they’re looking lovely and neat.

For the stuffing you don't need to buy wadding. See what you have at home. Rice adds extra weight, old socks, old tights, cut up old pillowcases or anything else you have to hand can be used to stuff your draught excluder. I used two threadbare towels rolled together to stuff this one.

To seal the open side of your draught excluder, you need to allow for ½ inch of fabric to be tucked in.

Shake your filler so the end is free when you sew 1/2 inch from the edge, back tracking at the start and finish. I much prefer to do this by hand using an ‘invisible seam or ladder stitch’ as it is easier than trying to get a stuffed draught excluder through a sewing machine. Another tip is if you have a close matching thread colour to your fabric then it hides any hand sewing imperfections.

Ready to start making your own draught excluder? Have fun with this easy project and look forward to a cosy winter!

TOP TIP: Make a cute snake draught excluder. Simply sew on two buttons for eyes and a piece of red ribbon (with a V-shaped piece cut out of one end) for a forked tongue.