Iron Craft week 2: Draft Dodger

This week on Iron Craft, the challenge I posted was to make a Draft Dodger.

We are in San Francisco, in a house that was built the year of “the quake”(1906). There are a lot of charming details, and lots of woodwork. But, yes, for a 104 year old building, there are some ’rounded corners’.

First, I made the double snake for the bathroom door.

I followed the tutorial posted by Not Martha.
I added an inner tube of fabric, and I filled that with sand, and put that inside the pipe foam.

This gives it a little more weight, and heft.
Two technical notes:
I would add that the snake on the “inside” of the door needs to be about an inch shorter than the ‘outside’ snake. The trim work on the door frame catches the tubing and smooshes it.
Not Martha uses masking tape and an exacto to cut her insulating foam. My tube was really smooshy, and it gave way easily under my scissors. It cut like buttah’.

Once the first one was made and ready for the photo shoot, my husband said he liked it.(!) (Good supportive craft husband) He said “We could use one under the front door.”
If you get down by the front door, you can feel the air rushing in. And yes, in fact, you can see daylight under the door. ! (Disturbing to think about how much time I have spent at floor level in the last two years. From child proofing before she could move around at the speed of light, to now, plopping down and having a tea party or roll out play dough in the kitchen, I have logged lots of time down low.)

The front door snake needed to be more hearty.

I made a big tube out of quilted fabric. And filled that with sand.
I got the sand at Lowes. There is a new Lowes that has opened near us. It is in the city of San Francisco proper. And we are irrationally excited about it. It is all clean and new and shiny and CLOSE.
Here, I submit to you a 50 lb bag of sand. It is almost immovable. There are no handles on this bad-boy, so you either get under it and dead lift it, or you get a fist grip on it and try to ‘lift with your legs’. This tiny little bag is so heavy and strange that it is disconcerting.
I made two snakes, and I didn’t even make a dent in this bag.

Then I sewed the casing, and just dropped the quilted sand tube in. It is a heavy tube. And it really keeps howling wind out! We put it into service last night, and we could feel the difference right away.

Technical note on this one: where the measurements were so important on the double snake, the measurements were not as important on this one. And while the double sided snake needed to be a touch smaller, this snake could stand to be a touch longer. If someone were starting out to make a snake for the front door, I would say go way longer than needed, and just curl the edges up. That way, you are covered.

The submissions for Iron Craft came pouring in last night and this morning. And once again, the creativity is staggering!
So many people are participating. And the things they did are so clever!
Happy New Year! Happy Crafting! Stay Warm! And stay tuned – the next challenge is being posted tomorrow morning.