Super Bowl day is just around the corner! Admittedly, sometimes we get our best ideas at or near the last minute – but this is an easy make you can still have ready for game day, you can easily make it in a day! (Instructions and templates are downloadable below),
Floor games for indoors or out are growing in popularity. We combined some quilting and crafting to make this Tic Tac Toe “board”, and instead of X’s and O’s we made some football bean bags (rice works too – whatever’s most convenient!) to toss to mark your spot!
Yes we know the 49ers aren’t playing this year but since we had fabric on hand for our 49ers fan we just went with it. You could use fabrics from your favorite teams – but there are so many ways to customize this idea – use college fabrics for the kids away at school, a holiday theme, or whatever you have on hand to use up some leftover fabrics- we know you have a stash 😉 ! Great for parties, the beach, sleepovers, camping … and more!
We’re going to give you the measurements we used but you’re welcome to change it up of course. The idea is what’s most important!
We started by measuring the width of the backing fabric so we wouldn’t have to add more to piece the back together. Ours measured approximately 44″ (without the selvage) so we backtracked from there so we’d have a good size square board with a little extra on the back for quilting.
Based on the 44″ here’s what you need –
— 9 fabric squares, 12″ x 12″
— 6 contrasting fabric strips 3-1/2″ x 12″ (we had extra back fabric so we used it)
— 2 contrasting fabric strips 3-1/2″ x 44″ (or full width of fabric, again we used the back fabric as we had … lots!)
— Back fabric 1-1/4 yard with width 44″ WITHOUT selvage
— Batting – Same as back fabric or a little larger (Warm & Natural is perfect as you don’t want it too thick)
— 1/4 yard brown fabric for footballs
— 1/4 yard white fabric for footballs
— Fabric for binding – we used a 2-1/4″ binding, made from the backing fabric. Estimate 1/3 yard for the size we made
— Thread – desired color for quilting/binding plus white and brown for stitches on footballs
— Sewing machine
— 1/4″ presser foot if desired
— Walking foot and/or quilt guide to keep quilted rows even
Let’s get started! (And we won’t keep repeating – but press seams as sewn, press to one side, press top after each step!)
- Cut fabric blocks and strips
- Using 1/4″ seam allowance, stitch sections of 3 blocks and 2 short strips together (configure your print any way you like!). We used a 1/4″ straight stitch presser foot with right guide. We have and love these feet for all your machines, so if you don’t have one – you need to come see us!
- Keep going until you have 3 blocks with a strip between them – you’ll end up with 3 of these!
- Add long strips to 2 of the strip sets, then join all 3 sections to form your Tic Tac Toe grid!
- Layer top, batting, back. We like spray adhesive to hold layers together before pinning
- Quilt it! We decided to keep it simple and follow the grid theme, so we first stitched in the ditch along each seam line, edge to edge – there are so many feet you can use to make this easy and precise – stitch in the ditch feet, any foot with center guide, accufeed/accuflex feet, digital dual feed, walking foot… we’ve got just what you need! Shown here is a foot with an adjustable guide, we used the red center mark to guide along the seamline, and will show how we used the guide next. We quilted in the ditch of every seam joining the blocks and strips… continuing through intersections – yes, you’ll see the stitching there, but we’ll show you how cool that looks in a bit!
- After stitching in the ditch we adjusted the guide to be 1″ from needle. (The solid color sashing strips end up 3″ after sewing – you’ll see why we used the 1″ spacing!) Stitch through all layers at these 1″ intervals on all your sashing strips.
Most machines come with a “quilt guide” – a bar you can attach and adjust to create parallel rows of stitching. Don’t know if you have one? They look like or similar to this –
When you’re done stitching in the ditch and in 1″ intervals – you’ll have created these grid patterns to enhance your game board – we love the look of this tone on tone pattern!
- Bind edges as you would any quilt – we’ve shown how to bind in previous posts you can refer to for a refresher (we’ll do a separate binding tutorial soon!) We used a single hole stitch in ditch foot to secure binding –
Now for the football markers! These are simple raw edged rice/bean bags (you can stitch right sides together if you want a more finished look). You’re going to create the stitching on the ball with a satin/zigzag stitch. We used a stitch width of 3.6, length .6 – test different settings on some scraps with stabilizer you’re going to use on back to decide what you like best.
- Cut 10 footballs from white and 10 footballs from brown fabric. We’ve provided a downloadable template. We cut roughly and hope they’ll be well used and soften up the edges. But if you have a ScanNCut or other cutting machine – this is a perfect tool to cut these out!
- Mark ends of the long stitching line, place stabilizer behind fabric – stitch it! Then we marked where we wanted the short stitch lines that cross it – we didn’t worry about being too perfect (remember this is fast and fun!), these are general guides (they’re very faint yellow and may be hard to see… also we started stitching just above the yellow dot and stopped just below to cover our markings). After creating all stitch lines, remove excess stabilizer.
- Place football back against football front, stitch approximately 3/16″ from edge leaving a 2″ opening.
- Put rice or beans inside bag. A funnel is great for this, or use a narrow spoon. Don’t fill too full!
- Stitch open edge closed
How fun are these?! Ok they’re sort of corny, but cute, yes?!
Game time!
Looks like brown wins! You’ll be a winner no matter what when you bring this fun and funny game out to play!
Download Super Game Day Tic Tac Toe Toss Instructions