Playing THRIFTY could score me 110 points!

It has been a relatively quiet Day Off - mainly because my better half in unwell, and is catching up on 2 nights without sleep. During the Wee Small Hours I was awake, and began thinking about our summer hols - and how it would be a good idea to take a Scrabble Set. We have THREE sets -the one from my childhood home, the one we bought when we were engaged, and the Greek Set we got when Bob was learning NT Greek for his College entrance. Trouble is, a regular board is 14" square, and not a convenient size to fit into a motorbike pannier. So somewhere around 3am, I worked out how to cut and fold the board into a 7"square [with the green outside of the board still on the outside] and remembered I had a piece of plasticised cotton to make a waterproof bag, and an old pencil case [split] which could be sacrificed to provide the zip. Then I remembered that in his hanky drawer is a "Magnificent Mouchoir" which was a Christmas gift about 14 years ago, imprinted with a Scrabble board from the 1993 World Championships. This hanky has NEVER been used.

So here is my tutorial for today's project.

CONVERTING REGULAR SCRABBLE INTO A TRAVEL SCRABBLE SET

1; draw a horizontal line across the centre of the board

2; Using ruler and sharp scalpel cut line right through on RIGHT hand side ONLY

3; Trim the cut edge, which will be rather messy and bind with clear, wide tape. I used clear parcel tape.

4; On the LEFT hand side of centre, SCORE carefully, on BOTH sides of the board. On the reverse, carefully trim away a strip of the green to enable better folding.

You should be able to fold the board as follows;

Fold conventionally down original vertical fold, then with fold to left, and slit side underneath, fold top section over and down, so "raw edges" are along top edge.

5; When you are satisfied that the board is folding properly, strength both sides of scored line with clear tape. Run a knitting needle [or similar] down centre of crease on both sides. Check the board will lay flat. Take a break and make a few words with the tiles!

6; At this point, I decided my board was looking tatty at the corners and so re-inforced them with lengths of clear tape too.

7; The outer storage bag I made from 2 pieces fabric each 10" square.

8; I sewed a patch trimmed from the hanky on one, just for decoration, and then sewed the zip in place. Check out this tutorial for the details! Make up the pouch.

9; Now with another piece of hanky fabric, make a simple drawstring bag for the tiles. I used some purple cord which was a handle from a free carrier bag I got given at CRE the other week!

10; Find a notepad and pen [more freebies] and there it is!

I put 2 racks at the bottom, and one each side, then slid in the board [re-inforced folds to the top works best for ease of removal] Then in went pad,pen and tile bag.

I am very pleased with this set and look forward to taking it to Ireland this summer. Packed away it should fit neatly into one of the panniers.And for anyone who might be wondering, no, we do NOT play much Greek Scrabble these days. It has a detrimental effect on the koinonia between us!

Time to make - 2½ hours

Cost - all materials to hand already - so nothing spent today!