Fabric Backgammon Board Game

If you had asked me a week ago if I’d ever played backgammon my answer would have been no.

This is what I said to the Mr when he asked me if I had played before.  I said that I’d like to learn though, so he downloaded an iphone app for it and taught me to play.  We both agree that it’s a great game.  It’s one of the oldest board games around.

Fast forward one week and we’re both slightly addicted to the game!

I wanted to do something special for J for his birthday this year.  He turned 30 today you see, it’s a pretty special day.

I had originally planned on buying a vintage set online, but after some searching I found them to be way out of my rather meagre current budget.

This is what made me decide to make my own backgammon board for him.  I remember seeing one on a blog many moons ago that someone had made.  I couldn’t find the link, or any free patterns online yesterday, so I decided to design it myself.

Yesterday afternoon I drew up a pattern, cut out my fabric, and pieced it together.  I made the board the exact size of our coffee table so that we can play while we sit on the couch at night.

I made the board entirely from things that I found about the house.  A very thrifty project indeed!

The green fabric came from a thrift store in Batemans Bay.  It’s very thick felt, like what you would find on a snooker or pool table.

The white fabric is a thin wool, perhaps from a blanket.  I purchased that from Reverse Garbage in one of my fabric gathering outings.

The backing fabric is a Japanese cotton, something that I bought from Tessuti ages ago.  I had been waiting for the perfect project to use it on, and I think it works really well.

The pieces/chips are buttons that I picked up from a local thrift shop ages ago.  I got about 150 of them for $1 I think.  I plan to sew or glue little circles of coloured felt into the tops of the buttons, but the white stickers are doing a fine job for now.  I found the organza bag in amongst my craft goodies, perfect for storing the pieces.

The only thing that I don’t have is the 4 dice, but they can wait.  In the meantime we’re using an iphone dice app!

I’m off to pack a picnic lunch for us to share today.  It’s a glorious day for a birthday picnic I think.  Happy birthday honey!