My dad and I play backgammon. It's our main time just the two of us whenever I visit or they come to see us here. I can't remember how old I was when I learned to play but we're talking about maybe twenty years on and off of fierce battles and trash talk.
So when thinking of what I can make dad for Christmas, I originally played with the idea of doing a blood donor theme (with the two hearts logo or something) but that wasn't going to be challenging enough! Then I had a flash of inspiration and decided on this...
It's made of 24 strips in single crochet with the colour changes in the shape of the long triangles on the main board. That was the tricky thing for me to figure out as I'm rubbish at doing colour changes but thankfully after a bit of practise, I got the hang of it! Then 15 small circles in red and 15 in white for the pieces which were then stitched on. The strips were crocheted together and I wanted a bit more width (so I could add a couple of dice) so in between the two sides, I added a row of cream granny squares. I made two small squares in single crochets with some dots stitched on for dice (at the start of the game, each player throws one die each and the highest number wins the roll) and stitched those on.
Around the outside, I did a number of small black/dark grey squares to finish off the board and added a doubling die (set to 8 as an in-joke).
(I really should have taken photos as I went along, d'oh!)
The triangular cream/brown border is entirely made out of basic granny squares where I've changed colour frequently along the diagonal and arranged into this pattern. Then finally, a granny strip border in cream, brown and blue.
This is intended for him when he sleeps on his chair and I was worried it wouldn't be long enough so I added more of a border in three shades of grey-it measures at approximately 5"2 length and 3"3 width.
It's taken 18 days to complete, approx 950g of yarn (acrylic) and the approximate cost for materials
£12-15.
So, here's the finished piece!
Really proud of how it turned out-it's right up there with the TARDIS blanket :-)
Simply stunning work Liz, I am blown away by this blanket - adore the idea and think you did an amazing job on it.
ReplyDeleteThanks sweetie-once I had the triangle strip things worked out, the rest was pretty straightforward, just lots of bits to put together! Dad had better like it :-)
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