Joven's moat

First a little background. My grandson loves, and I mean loves, knights and dragons and is a real history buff to boot....he's now the ripe old age of 11! When he was about 5 his parents had a brand new home built and he wanted a knight room, of course, and he insisted that they somehow put a "moat" in his room. He had several ideas how to do this. One was to paint a river on the rug and he would put a piece of wood over top where it led to his castle. My daughter refused to paint on the new rug, nor would she paint a river on the wall leading down to the floor.  I told her not to worry, I had an idea. This was it.

All he wanted was a moat and drawbridge in front of his castle. The small squares are 2" squares and they are green for the forest, or grey/brown for rocks, animals, etc. The light ones in the top left are for a path leading to the river. I really wanted the moat to have something dangerous in it and couldn't think of what to do. I was thinking about it while I was trying to go to sleep one night and all of a sudden it came to me - SHARKS! All I had to make was a few prairie points ( for you none quilters that may be reading this - a prairie point is when you take a square of fabric, fold it half on a diagonal, and then fold in half again along the long folded edge to the making a short point at the fold) (you quite often see these on the edge of a quilt). So, using black fabric I made a few small prairie points and inserted them between 2" squares so the tips just stick out with some going each way. That's what you see in the water. Looks just like shark fins.  The drawbridge is attached with Velcro so all he has to do is pull it up by the handle to release it.  He loved it!

Here he is playing with it. I was also smart enough to bring the castle that my girls played with as youngsters (Fisher-Price just didn't wear out back then) to where we were celebrating Christmas (usually at another daughter's house) so he would have something to play with. Hubby thought I was crazy and he wouldn't play with it but Grandma's knows better so I ignored him.  Here it is: