Sew a Draughts Set

Have you ever done a shoebox for Operation Christmas Child? This year, I am filling a shoebox for a 10-14 year old boy. After all, this is the approximate age band of my boys at the moment. I already have pens, sweets, soap and such things, but I really wanted to sew something to go into it.

I have drawn heavily on the travel draughts tutorial in Tanya Whelan's book,Sew What You Love , although my dimensions were quite a bit smaller.

Why have a black & white board, when you can have mustard yellow and dove grey?

What you need:

Two different contrasting fabrics (fat quarters are ideal)

Buttons

Ribbon

To make:

1. Measure out some strips on your fabric. Mine were 40cm in length and the width of my ruler (about 5cm). Cut out four of these strips from each fabric.

2. Sew the strips together with alternate colours and iron the seams flat. Don't worry if the ends aren't too neat.

3. With your fabric strips lying vertically, mark out with the width of your ruler the horizontal strips and cut.

4.Turn each alternative strip around so that you have a classic checkerboard laid out.

5. Sew each strip together, again ironing flat the seams. You know have your basic board.

6. Trim the board into a square.

7. Measure out a piece of fabric for the back. Tanya Whelan created a pouch in her book, with velcro fastening. I have just sewn the fabric right sides together and after turning right way out, closed the gap with some top stitching.

8. Add 24 buttons (12 of each colour) and pop them in a bag.

9. Roll up with the buttons in the middle and tie with a length of ribbon.

Love Mrs Jones x