Sink the Pirate Ship

I went through many ideas in my head for how to make my Sink the Pirate Ship game. I thought about using some of that foam poster board stuff (I decided that would make my ship smaller than I thought my target audience would be capable of hitting), I thought of finding a large appliance box (that one sounded like lots of effort to find someone tossing out big boxes), and finally settled on buying a thin sheet of plywood and painting it (I even looking it up online- it would have been about $6). But then three things got in the way of that plan- #1: I was impatient, #2: I rarely have a desire to go to Home Depot with children, and #3: I was feeling cheap. As I was wandering around my house admiring my new fence (It is beautiful by the way), I stumbled over the PVC pipe remains of our chicken coup, and a new idea came to mind.

The finished product. How did I get there? I shall show you.

 First, I went through my fabric stash and pulled out anything that looked like it might work. I laid them out to get an idea.

 After sewing my sky and water together, I cut out a ship outline. My "reference" was the pirate ship I can cut with the Paper Dolls Dress Up Cricut cartridge, but any picture or clip art image will do.

 I spray mounted the ship so that it would stay somewhat in place and then went around all the edges with a zig zag stitch to keep it in place. I did the same thing with the sails (except the upper sails, those I just stitched a straight line across the top). The flag and port holes I spray mounted on, but I ended up painting around their edges with puff paint instead of sewing them (the skull on the Jolly Roger was painted on as well).

 I used my small plates for hole placement and size. Yup, they are the same plates that I used to make the cannonballs.

 This is what it looked like cut out.

 I took more fabric and sewed big pockets that I attached to my holes (just make sure that the circumference of the pocket is at least as big as the circumference of the hole- a little bit bigger is OK since you can gather the pocket to make it fit much easier than stretching the pocket to fit the hole. I might have had to unpick all of the first pockets that I made and make them larger so that they would look better. As you can see in the picture above the pockets are hanging kind of funny). This step is optional. I just didn't want to have to go chasing all over my yard for stray balls. It also finished the look. (You could use this same idea to make those picture prop thingies (technical term I am sure) with the face cutouts. You also don't have to do a pirate theme- it would work for whatever you want.)

 I took another piece of fabric the same size as my picture for the back and sewed the two together. I would actually recommend attaching the two together before sewing in the pockets so that you can cut holes in the back fabric easier. This step could also be skipped if you wanted to just sew velcro or straps or sleeves for the posts to go through. As long as you can attach it to the PVC it should be fine.

I almost forgot to mention the upper sails. To finish them, I just folded them up, accordion style, and tacked them in place with some hand stitches. It gave it a nice little 3D touch.

After I had my fabric all finished, complete with dried paint (I added a few birds too- they are hard to see) I made a simple frame from the PVC. For mine, I was using 1" PVC pipe (that is what I had on hand) and I figured I would need to cut the horizontal posts 4" shorter to account for the elbows on the corners. I probably could have gotten away with closer to 3", but it works just fine the way it is. The other measurements weren't technical- just enough to get it off the ground. My ground braces are a little long, but my husband was cutting them and I just told him to cut me four shorter pieces whatever length would be the easiest. That is what he brought me. I ended up using 6 elbows and 4 tees in addition to the pipe. I think my finished horizontal measurement was 41". The height was a little more than that.

 The back view. To finish the edges on the back I did sew some bias tape around them. That was purely because I am silly like that. I also sewed a finishing seam around my pockets from the front. 

 Even the little Monkey has had fun playing with the pirate ship. She is pretty good from this distance.

My changed plans came with a bonus that I didn't even realize in the beginning- storage is going to be so much easier than if I had bought a sheet of plywood. It collapses down quite nicely. Another bonus is that the frame is interchangeable. I could make other bean bag toss games, or photo booth type thingies (I'm sure they must have a name, but I don't know what it is). The possibilities are endless.