Making a Game Board - Checkers

 I have been wanting to do something with fabric weaving for ages, and ages.... time you know, it flies away.

Well now my grandchilden are getting bigger I need to have a stash of Granny Game Bags to get out and play with them.

When I was a kid my Big Nana Leichardt would spend hours with us playing cards, football/soccer as long as you were not rough and teaching me to crotchet and cross stitch, my other Grandmathers Toongabbie and Maryong also fed my love of crafts and cooking.

I reaslise what a rich foundation laid by my Grandmothers and Great-Grandmother early in my life and I am so grateful for their time and sharing.

I am a Granny now and it is so important to me to follow on in their footsteps and I have spent this year of waiting fruitfully stitching.

Along the way Praveen got to enjoy his first game of checkers, he knows he will have to get up to speed to play with the littlies and is looking forward to it.

I made these at home, I am most intereted in stitching by hand, not machine.... and they are a bit 'rustic'.

When I took them to the workshop to ask Bulbir to put binding on them, he and Madhu Madam were thrilled with the idea and recoginzied the game Ludo, checkers was not known to them.....

and then

the funny bit- they looked at my cutting and I could see them searching around in their mind about how to say it was not very straight without sounding rude to me. Haha!! 😄

So whilst I am sharing the basic idea with you, I do suggest you work in a way that is soothing to you.

For me that is hack it out and sit and stitch it on my lap.

You might like to use a ruler, and one of those scary sharp cutting wheels for a laser esge.

I wove the strips together and then used an open blanket stitch to applique them to the backing.

You could use a wide, tight zigzac stitch on your machine to stitch them down.

To Cut 

I am refering to the kits we have available in our shop 

You can also use fabric you have to hand.

1. Base- heavy weight fabric finished size will be 42 x 42 cm

 [ 16.8inches- inch people, you might have to do a little adjusting, my brain won't cope with sorting this for you- sorry]

2. You need 2 colours for the check pattern

NOTE the strips on the border edge need to be wider so you can cover the edges with piping.

Colour 1 & Colour 2

Cut 42 cm x 5 cm x 6 pieces

Cut 42 cm x 6 cm x 2 pices

3. This is the magic part

- weave the strips through each other to create your grid.

- I start and do it roughly, 

- then a start on one edge and pin the first strip into place and then really snuggle the next stip up to it and pin it down

- then I stitch that strip. 

- If I pin everything at once I get a lot of pins in hands pricks- not fun. You can see how I know that in the photo.... too many pins at once and you have to take care.

Working on the narrow strip for a Ludo board- same idea though.

4. Continue until finished all the strips and then add a 1cm piping to bind the edges of your board and you are ready to go.

Note board is square- Bulbir and Madhu made sure of that, just my photo is wonky.

Next time I will write about the counters- suffolk puffs with a button on top

Ludo board it same idea and a bit more .