Tic-Tac-Toe Tutorial & Mom's Pfefferüsse Cookie Recipe

Hi and welcome to my stop on the Riley Blake Stitch 'n Kitchen Blog Tour! For my project I'm using the new Stashing Sash fabric line by Eleanor Dugan. As I was working on the game board, I learned that the next Modern Quilt Guild (MQG) challenge will be using this fabric. Please visit the MQG blog here for additional information.   

The game board is 21" square and we'll be making 5 x's and 5 o's as well as a lined drawstring bag (the bag uses Jeni Baker's super awesome free tutorial). First let's make the game pieces.

For the game board and pieces you will need:

1 fat quarter for x's
1 fat quarter for o's
1 yard solid for game top
1 yard backing fabric
1/2 yard solid white for grid strips
1/2 yard binding fabric (or fat quarter - it'll have more seams)
22" square piece of batting
505 spray baste
Pellon 805 Wonder Under
pinking shears

 

Select two fabrics for the x's and o's. Shown are Sashing Stash Checkerboard in Black and Medium Dot in Royal from Riley Blake (not part of the Sashing Stash line but it coordinates nicely). Download this PDF and print it at 100%. Cut the shapes out of the template.

 

 

Cut as many strips of fabric as you need for 10 shapes (fronts and backs of the pieces). 

 

 

Place a piece of scrap paper (newspaper would also work) down on a flat surface. Make a quilt sandwich (backing fabric wrong side up, batting, top fabric), spray basting each layer as you go. Smooth it out with your hands to remove all the wrinkles. 

 

 

Trace five o's onto the quilt sandwich. Carefully cut out the shapes with pinking shears and topstitch 1/4" in from the edges. Repeat this process to create the x's with the other print.

 

 

Fuse Pellon 805 Wonder-Under to 3" on the edge of the white solid fabric. Cut four 1/2" strips (they must be at least 21" long to cross the game board). 

 

 

Cut a 21" square for the top of the game board. Fuse the white strips onto the top fabric in a grid as shown. 

 

 

Use a blanket stitch appliqué to affix all the strips to the top. 

 

 

Cut a 22" square of batting fabric and a 22" square of backing fabric (backing fabric shown is Sashing Stash Half Square Triangles in Red). Make a quilt sandwich; I used 505 spray baste again, which I tend to do for small projects.

 

 

Have your helper hold the sandwich down, square up the edges and trim to a 21" square. :)

 

 

I used a zig zag stitch down the center of the white strips as quilting. Easy and fun!

 

 

Create the binding fabric. Shown is Small Chevron in Royal by Riley Blake. You will need 90" of 2.5" binding. Feel free to machine bind; I did the binding by hand.

 

 

Time for the lined drawstring bag. Here's the link again. If you've never made of the these, this comes with a warning: they're highly addictive and suddenly you'll want a drawstring bag for everything. . . 

 

 

We love board games and card games, so I'm hoping to play tic-tac-toe with the kids over the holidays when there's a lot of waiting for things to happen.  

 

On each stop on the blog tour throughout the month of December there has been a bonus recipe. I'm sharing my mom's recipe for Pfeffernüsse (German Spice Cookies). We've been making them nearly every year since I was little. The recipe makes 4 dozen cookies (ish). ;)

3/4 cup molasses
1 stick butter
2 eggs
4 1/4 cups white flour
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1 1/4 tsp. baking soda
1 1/2 tsp. ground cinnamon
1/2 tsp. ground cloves
1/2 tsp. ground nutmeg
dash of pepper

In a saucepan combine molasses and butter. Cook and stir until butter melts. Set aside and allow to cool to room temperature.

Stir 2 beaten eggs into the cooled molasses mixture and put aside. Meanwhile, sift together four, sugar, baking soda, cinnamon, cloves, nutmeg and pepper. Add to molasses mixture (after adding eggs). Mix well. Chill in the refrigerator for 1 hour.

Shape into 1" balls. Bake on greased cookie sheet (I use parchment paper instead) at 375° for 12 minutes. Cool and roll in powdered sugar.

Enjoy the cookies while you play tic-tac-toe, and happy holidays!!