Quilt Rack

I never thought I would be so excited about getting a quilt rack.

Brotherly Love: The Luigi Quilt

Remember the stack of squares I showed you in May?  If not, I can't say that I blame you.  If so...thanks!  Well, what I didn't tell you at the time was that stack of squares was for both a Mario and a Luigi quilt.  I initially planned to keep the Mario quilt for myself and give the Luigi quilt as a Christmas present.  What I didn't know is that Ari would eventually claim the Mario quilt as his own, leaving me without the new quilt I was wanting.  He was so excited when it was finished and it looked so good in his room, I more than happy to let him use it.

I decided to keep the Luigi quilt for myself, and I ended up making the Link quilt to give as a Christmas present.  Even though I had all the squares cut for the Luigi quilt, I made the Link quilt and the Colts quilt first since I needed to have them finished before Christmas.  After those quilts were made, it took me some time to get motivated to finish Luigi.  Much to my surprise, once I finished the Luigi quilt Ari claimed it for himself, preferring to have it on his bed instead of Mario.  I gladly indulged the boy, and I ended up with my Mario quilt after all.  It's funny how things work out sometimes.

Super Mario Quilt

The Super Mario quilt is complete!  I am so happy with the way it turned out, too.  I love the colors, plus having a life-size quilted Mario is pretty cool.  It didn't take me as long to complete it as I thought it would, and it wasn't nearly as tedious as I was anticipating by using smaller squares. 

Even more happy to have the quilt completed is Ari, who had been asking me when it would be finished since I bought the fabric.  The night I finished it, I took it up to his room and covered him with it so he would be surprised when he woke up.  He was pretty thrilled the next morning.  It fits on his bed nicely, too.

Hmmm...maybe I should make a Princess Peach quilt for Emilie...

Mario Head Start

I am half-way finished with the front of my Mario quilt; and Ari and Emilie would be happy if I stopped here.  I have to admit I have had the most fun making this quilt because I am able to see Mario come together with each square. Stay tuned...

I can't spare a square

No, I haven't forgotten about my Mario quilt, it has just taken me a really long time to cut all these squares.  Each square is 3.5 inches by 3.5 inches, and I am so glad I finally have them all cut.  The next step will be to lay them all out in the correct order; then, I'll sew them all together.  Talk about fun!  It is hard to imagine this stack of fabric actually turning into a quilt.  Stay tuned!

Mario Quilt Design

I've come up with a design for my 8-bit Mario quilt. I'm very excited about making it.

I basically just took the image of Mario from the title screen of 'Super Mario Bros.' and zoomed in on it. I moved the green hill over a little bit because I wanted to some blue sky behind Mario in the quilt.

I'm still debating whether or not to go with an all blue background so Mario would stand out more. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated. When it's done it should measure about about 6 feet by 4.5 feet. Now to buy the materials. Onward and upward!

Time for a Mario quilt?

I've been fighting the desire to make another quilt for myself, but I think now is the time to get started. Inspiration calls, and who am I not to listen? Don't get me wrong, I still love my R.E.M. quilt, I just want to make another. I would like to make a smaller quilt this time since my R.E.M. quilt is the size of a queen bed comforter. Inspiration struck when I was looking for ideas for Ari's Mario bedroom. I stumbled upon this pattern:

Ah-ha! A Mario quilt! How cool. I looked at Google images to see what other people have done, and there were quite a few Mario quilts out there. This has been in the back of my mind for some time and I am ready to get the ball rolling on it.

With Super Mario Bros. for the NES being an 8 bit video game, all the images are made with the combination of distinguishable different colored squares. Since quilting is basically cutting squares of fabric and sewing them together, I can use game images as a reference to do any design that I want. All I have to do is sew the different colored squares together to get the image that I am looking for. Easy, right?

I am still thinking about the different designs I can do, and narrowing them down will be a challenge. I don't know if I want to do one big Mario, or incorporate other characters or objects. The sky is the limit, it just depends on how many squares I want to cut. When looking for ideas, I came across this cross-stitch pattern:


As you can see, this design is just made up of little squares as well, so I could make it into a quilt. I really liked this design until I got to counting all the squares I would need. I did some math and found that I would need to cut 30,000 individual squares to complete the front of the quilt. A little bit more than I was bargaining for. Plus, it would be 200 squares wide, and 150 squares
tall. So, even if I cut 1/2 inch squares, it would still be as big as my R.E.M. quilt. In other words, not gonna happen.

So, my search continues for a pattern, and I'll most likely come up with one on my own. I'm looking forward to this new endeavor, though, and will post updates as my new project continues.