by mrmonkeyball
I enjoy Castles of Burgundy a lot but was always a bit annoyed by the fact that there is no good storage solution for the different coloured hex-tiles. I always used transparent zip bags which is not the perfect choice for things that have to be drawn random. As always, the community here had a good idea: When browsing through the image gallery of the game I saw that many guys are using coloured little bags for the different types of hex tiles. I went shopping but did not find any bags that I liked so I decided to sew them myself. I did not do a lot of sewing before so I needed to ask friends and watch youtube videos for some hints and tricks.Here is a little guide which lets you follow my steps. Maybe someone wants to sew the same bags, it really is not very hard and I think they look quite nice.
What you need
- 7 patches of cloth in the 7 colours of the hex tiles (yellow, light green, dark green, blue, brown, grey, black).
- thin, strong, preferably waxed thread. Best results if you have it in all 7 matching colours. I used white for all of them. The shortest I found was 150m which was mor than enough.
- a thicker, nice looking thread. I used burgundy. Some metres are enough.
- a small and a bigger needle, one for each thread.
- a pair of cloth scissors or a very sharp knife (I used a scalpel)
- about an afternoon of time
Cutting the patches
At first you need to cut out your patches. The size does not really matter but it should be the same for all bags. I used a piece of paper approximately 12cm wide to cut patches of approximately 12cm x 15cm.
I cut two patches per colour but realised later that I could have saved myself a fair bit of work if I would have cut one patch of 12cm x 30cm per colour and would have folded it afterwards.
This should be common sense, but if you try to cut the cloth make sure you have a mat underneath in order not to damage your table!
Sewing the bags
The next step is to sew the patches of matching colours together. Lay the two patches on top of each other or fold the one patch if you did not do my mistake. If your fabric has a beautiful and a not-so-beautiful side, make sure that the beautiful side is inside as we are sewing the bag inside-out. You now need the thin thread. You should start with a piece about half a metre long but you can use longer pieces later; the difference is that you have to pull it through the patches after every stitch and as long as you are not used to it, it is easy to make an unintentional knot and to ruin your work.
Make a big knot (loop the thread around a finger, roll it off so that the loops twists a lot and then pull the thread) at one end of the thread and thread the needle with the other hand.
Now prick the needle through both layers of cloth and pull until the knot stops you from pulling further. You want to start as close as you can (about 0.5cm to 1cm) away from one of the longer sides of the bag and about 5cm away from a shorter one. I dont't know how to explain this better, just have a look at the pictures. Then, do a backstitch: Go one step back (prick the needle from the top), and two steps forward (prick the needle from underneath).
Then, pull the thread through until it is tight.
Continue until you have about 10cm left. To fix the end, go back one step and forward one step twice, then guide your needle through this last double stitch. Before pulling tight, guide it through the loop of the thread to make a knot. Then just go randomly through the patch to fix everything and cut the rest of the thread.
Then, start with a new thread exactly where you finished with the last one and continue your way around the bag until you have sewed 3 sides (you want one left unsewed for the opening of course). As a rule of thumb, your thread has to be 4-5 times as long as the distance you still have to sew (3 times if sewing perfectly plus some extra to allow for mistakes and finish off).
Now, turn your bag inside-out (or better: inside-in).
You now need the thicker thread and the thicker needle. Th Thread should be 4 times als long the width of your bag. Same as before, make a knot (a normal, small one should be enough) at one end and thread the needle with the other end. Fold the unsewed cloth at the opening twice to make the hem look nice.
Then, prick the needle through all layers of this just folded hem and through one layer of your bag (you don't want to sew it up!). To make it look prettier, I folded in the beginning of the hem another time and pricked the needle through it so that no cutting edges are visible. Don't pull it too far, you want about 7cm of thread left over.
Now, go with a very basic stich through bag an hem. I liked about 1cm but use any distance you like. At the end of the hem, go one last time to the inside of the bag, turn it around and continue on the other side.
When finished, knot the two ends together and make another knot into the second end (after removing the needle). The bag is now done!
You can pull the threads to close the bags.
And all together, they look pretty nice.
I think all in all it took some time (about 30 minutes per bag for me) but it was not a very hard job. If you are not very experienced in crafting but want to pimp your games, this might be a great first project: It is easy, relatively cheap (about AUD25 in my case, with many leftovers and things I can use for future projects) and it is a very useful addition to this great game! Have fun trying to copy this!