As to the board, my ideas gradually converged on making a quilted board from sari fabric. Keep in mind that I'd never done any quilting, in any way, shape or form ...
Sari fabric, in four colours, was quickly ordered.
Why four colours, you might ask? Two colours for the 'white' and 'black' squares (green and purple, respectively), one colour for the edges of the board (blue), and, in a nod to the 'ashtapada' board that Chaturanga, the oldest known form of chess, was played on, red for the special ashtapada squares.
By the way, current thinking is that this ashtapada board was used for a race game, and then used for playing chess at a later date; the marked squares were likely entry and exit squares for the game, or possibly safe squares.
Back to my Kama Sutra set, the playing area of the board was constructed from 64 sari squares, in green, purple, and red, sewn together.
Then, blue strips were added along the sides of the playing area.
Quilting wadding to give the board a bit of volume, and sewing together of top surface, wadding, and a large blue square of sari fabric that was to form the underside of the board.
Next step was to sew between all the squares, and thus the playing area became fully quilted!
Final step was to finish off the edges of the board.
And the board is done!
So all that remains to be done is to put the pieces on the board.
The board is certainly not perfect, but given that I've got very limited experience using a sewing machine; that sari fabric is very difficult work with (for me, at least; it's very slippery and stretchy, and no amount of pins stopped that); and that I'd never done any quilting, I'm pretty pleased with how it turned out.
The pieces, the board and the colours all work together, and it's definitely unlike any chess set or board I ever made.
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