Recycle old jeans to make draft excluder

I have been collecting old jeans for years now, not for any purpose but because I can't bear to throw them away, especially as some of them are so expensive.  But these jeans have become unwearable as they have completely worn away in places, particularly in the crotch area!

As we have been experiencing a particularly cold winter here in England I decided to put the old jeans to good use and have made patchwork draft excluders out of them (willy worms as I like to call them).  I even made one for my brother.  They turned out better than I had hoped and so I decided to share what I had done.

1. I started by measuring the width of the door, and then cut out a template using left over Christmas wrapping paper.  The wrapping paper was great as it had a grid drawn on the wrong side.  I then cut out a second template but this time cut it into random shapes to make the patches.  (My cat José sneaked into this photo)

2. I then cut out the patches from the jeans using my templates, and planned how I was going to fit them together.  This is where I found it useful to have the large template so I could figure out what to put where, I liked mixing up the different colours that I had. 

3. I then sewed the patches together.  I'm lucky enough to have inherited a sewing machine, but I'm sure it could be done by hand.

4.  Follow steps 2 & 3 so that you have two pieces of patchwork material

5. Place the two pieces together right sides facing.  Sew along the two longs sides and one of the short sides.  Then put your arm inside and pull the draft excluder the right way out.

6. Stuff it with any left over scraps of material, I also use tights that have laddered and old holey socks (washed first of course!)

7. You are then just left with sewing up the open end, this is my least favourite part of making these as I try to make it neat and I hand sew it, but I find it time consuming and I seem to jab myself a lot with the needle.

And it's done!