Corn Hole Crafting

A little back story to begin. Several years ago I decided to make teepee tents for the grand-niece and nephew. I got the fabric and cut everything out, but talked Mom into doing the sewing since I didn't have a machine. I thought (out loud it seems) about making some more at the time, so guess what Mom got me for Christmas that year? Yes, a sewing machine. Since that time, she has used it at my house for different projects we came up with three or four times. Me? I used it once I think, but never really knew how to set it up.

Jump forward to the current world and the corn hole fanatics (FabHub and his friend Jones) got the idea to build some boards. Actually, they want to build lots of them, so if you are interested and live nearby (shipping would be expensive), let us know. What is corn hole? A game where people throw bags of whole corn at boards that have a six inch round hole in them. The players get one point for landing a bag on the board and three points for dropping it through the hole. Kind of like horseshoes, but more versatile in location and a bit safer and easier for everyone to play.

These are some of the boards that the guys have built They are set up at a picnic and ready for three different games to be played at the same time. Usually they play in the grass or on a gravel drive, but the driveway was more convenient this time.

Back to the sewing part of this story. Each team in the game has four corn bags. Because we can't do things the simple way around here, we decided to make the bags.

Ok, the truth is, we decided to volunteer MOM to make the bags.

I cut the pieces out of some old denim jeans and she agreed to do the sewing. Then they built another set of boards that we brought out to Kansas, and Mom sewed the bags for those at her house.

Then the guys decided to make a set of boards for the school and Jones gave his (without the bags) to some relatives so he needed new boards. The guys got together and built two more sets.

Luckily, since Jones still had his old corn bags, they only needed one more set for the school in black and red. And guess who got the chance to volunteer for that sewing part of the project? Yes, me, the one with the sewing machine. Lucky for us, Mrs. Jones has painting skills so that creative side of things is hers.

Since we used denim for the previous bags we wanted to do that for this set too. The problem is that I really doubted that I would find red denim so something would have to be dyed. So where does this all start? At the Walmart of course! I found some white jeans and a pair of blue on the clearance rack that would very likely take the red and black dye.

First thing was to cut our the seven inch squares.

Then the fun part started.

One pot of red dye cooking some denim.

After I had the colors done I hung them on a rack in the bathroom to dry.

If you notice the pieces all have some fringed edges of loose string. I had to trim all of that before I could sew them up because the strings kept sticking out the edges. Next time I will sew the bags up before I dye them.

After the fabric was ready I got the sewing machine out.

And the instruction manual. I read all of it. Filling a bobbin, threading the machine, speeds... all of it. Home Economics class came back - but very slowly.