Mayfair Games / £18 – £20 / 2 Players / 30 mins / Age 8+
Patchwork is a form of art, in which the designers use precious fabrics to create beautiful textiles. In the game Patchwork to create a beautiful quilt requires effort and time, but the available patches just do not want to fit together. So choose your patches carefully and keep a healthy supply of buttons to not only finish your quilt, but to make it better and more beautiful than your opponent‘s. – Mayfair Games
Tamz happens to enjoy a bit of patchwork and quilting in her spare time. So this game was made just for me! Mike showed me a Dice Tower video of it being played, thinking I would be interested, then we spent the next few weeks hunting FLGS to find they were all out of stock! Ah well, as much as we love to support the shops, Amazon saved the day.
A game designed for two players is a joy to play. We find a lot of games say you can play 2 player, but they don’t pan out well. With simple rules but lots of planning and strategy involved, this game keeps us on our toes. The aim is to spend ‘buttons’ to purchase patches and create a complete patchwork on a 9×9 square board. You have to be careful of the patches you purchase to make sure they fit nicely – points are taken off for any ‘holes’ in your quilt at the end of the game.
The artwork is lovely, with all the tiles displaying different fabric patterns. The colours evoke the sense of an old well loved quilt. The blue buttons are also adorable. Like many others we replaced the cardboard buttons with actual blue buttons, well, it had to be done! In fact, I purchased soooooo many buttons I changed the wooden token to a stack of buttons I glued together.
Mike and I like to play this game in the evenings as it is nice and relaxing. It does take us the recommended half an hour to play, which is unusual as we normally race through games. We like to think about our moves and watch what the other is doing. You can see the other players quilt with no problems and know what they are up to. Despite this we still don’t really know who will win until the end of the game.
I only had one problem with this game. After I purchased the blue buttons the box components ended up in a bit of a pickle. It is really annoying to scrabble around the box for every last button and patchwork piece when you just want to play the game. So I had a thought, why not use my quilting skills to make a little bag to put all the buttons in?
So I did . . .
Easy peasy. I choose a hexagon shape as it would still fit in the box and is a classic shape. English Paper Piecing was the best method as I could sit in front of the TV of an evening and sew away without really thinking. If you want to have a go at making this bag I have made a guide all about English Paper Piecing – English Paper Piecing Guide. I have also made a Patchwork Bag Template so you can print out of all the pieces needed for this design – remember you need two sets.
So now I have made a few custom upgrades to this game, any idea what I should do with all the left over buttons?!!! I was thinking of a bracelet or how about a custom button trophy for winning the game?
For More Information – Mayfair Games
Wow, lovely real Patchwork to compliment the Patchwork game.
Great to be able to bring your quilting skills to your gaming skills :O)
Impressed. Are you taking orders?
This is absolutely wonderful. I love the patchwork-y nature of the bag, and the colour scheme of blues to match the button! Can’t imagine a more perfect version of the game.