Horse Race Track Game

Last night we went to a party and the  hosts had a game that they made, it was tons of fun! They had a "race track" that was sewn on a large piece of green felt. And they had six toy horses and a pair of dice. Since we were at a party for adults, we played horse races by betting on the horses. Me, I was checking out the sewing on the felt and thinking how I could reproduce it.  My husband was thinking the same thing, he mentioned to me to take notice of the racetrack so I could sew one. Great minds think alike!

It was done on one piece of green felt. The stitching was in a contrast white. I asked the guy who owned the game about it and he said his step mom made it. It was serged around the edges and straight stitched with double lines for the lanes and single lines for the spaces.  I could do that.

Today, I looked through my fabric and what did I find?  A large piece of dark green polyester!  It was polyester, but it was the perfect size and color.  It would be great for a practice piece if anything.  I had a feeling sewing long straight lines might be a challenge.

My green piece of fabric is 40" x 56".  I made six "lanes" that are 6.25" wide and I made spaces that are 7" long.  Like the felt at the party, I serged the edges and straight stitched the lanes with double lines and the spaces with a single line.

I discovered that sewing straight lines is actually harder than it sounds!

I googled and looked for some tips online, but all that I found were methods of sewing straight lines by using the guides on the machine. That does work well, but only if you're sewing near the edge of the fabric.  In this case, the guide marks will not be of much use.

That's ok. I'm resourceful!  I measured and pinned to mark the lines.  Then I took my cloth to the ironing board and ironed a crease where my stitching would go.  Measured again to make sure I had 6.25" all the way down the row and was keeping my line straight.

Then I moved the fabric to the machine and sewed along the crease.  When I was done, I ironed the stitching and flattened out the crease. Ta-Da!!! Worked like a charm!  My stitches are (mostly) straight.

I repeated the same process with the spaces.  I made it six lanes across and 8 spaces long. I think my lanes are wider than the game board we played on last night, but that's ok. I think this is a flexible project. As long as the spaces are big enough for a toy horse, they're just fine. I'm sure that four lanes or eight lanes would be fine too, you could make this race track any size you think would be best for you.

Once I had all of the stitching done, I began to applique the lane numbers. The lanes or the toys need to be numbered. I printed numbers on Word, flipped them backward and cut them out of some bright red scrap fabric that was in my scrap basket.

Using Heat n Bond, I ironed the numbers on to the fabric in the first row (which is when I flop them over right side up again). I top-stitched the numbers and the race track was ready for action!

Since we didn't have six toy horses, we improvised and gathered up some toys that looked like they wanted to race.  The kids were all skeptical since Mom and Dad usually have really lame ideas, but they soon were laughing and cheering for their favorite toy to win.

The game is played by rolling two dice. Each die moves a player one space. For example, if a roll of the dice results in a 3 and a 5, the toy in lane 3 moves one space and the toy in lane 5 moves one space. If a roll results in snake eyes, the toy in lane one moves two spaces because it moves one space for each time the number one comes up.

When we played as a family, each person chose a toy to cheer for. We took turns rolling the dice. We showed the kids that it doesn't matter who is older, wiser, stronger, or faster. Everyone has the same chance of winning. It's a game of chance and random results. The winner can be anyone! Only the dice know.