I still can’t get enough of the brown linen I made my new family room pillows out of (see one of them at the end of this post.) I had a flash of inspiration one day after doing some rearranging of games in my new bookcases and then cleaning up my sewing area…
Why not use the scraps of that brown linen to make some small functional bags for game pieces? I’m not talking about the pieces that live nicely in their game boxes with all the other parts to the game. I’m talking about those 5 dice in that ziplock snack bag that goes along with the Yahtzee score pad.
Or the Mancala stones that also live in a ziplock snack bag?
Or the Yote African checkers game pieces… they actually came in a drawstring bag of their own, but it won’t…stay…closed! And it’s cheap. Which is fine, because I’d rather pay ME to make a cute bag than pay for a game with a bag I don’t really like.
And isn’t that one of the joys of making things yourself? They are JUST what you like best!
Since I’m spending this week traveling all over WA, I packed up my little denim bucket with needles, perle cotton, fabric scraps and blunt-tipped scissors and took off.
Two bags almost done — during my brief stint at home on Friday, I took the already-embroidered Yote bag to the sewing machine but I missed the step of stitching down the casing for the drawstring. I had thought of doing it by hand, but I think I’ll run that heavy gold perle (size 3) through a machine stitched casing instead. The word Yote is embroidered using basic Chain Stitch.
I then embroidered and sewed up the Mancala bag while riding in the car. Please forgive the white pen marks still showing. Spit can only do so much! LOL
The Mancala bag is labeled using Straight Stitches; the long ones are anchored by Couching them randomly. The inside of the bag was sewn together using some old wool crewel yarn that stuck to the stuff I was gathering up. Useful!
Two down, and now that I’m on this groove I think there’s about 5 more to do! Yahtzee mentioned above, big enough to hold little pencils, too. Checkers pieces — the box died ages ago and the checkers live in a old and brittle pint freezer container. The whole Rush Hour puzzle game could live in a bag… and more!
Each bag is taking about an hour in the car once I have decided on the size and threads. It’s a nice way to pass otherwise unfilled time.
Happy traveling, stitching, and gaming!
Gail
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