Mario quilt for the bf! (FINALLY FINISHED!) **NOW WITH TUT!

Hey Everyone! Sorry it took me forever (like a year) to get my tutorial photos together and up here. Had a lot going on... Anyway, hope this helps everyone! (tut at bottom)

So, I was incredibly inspired by iddosteveperry's mario quilt that was posted awhile ago (http://www.craftster.org/forum/index.php?topic=220857.0) and I had to try it for myself. I started making the characters about a month ago and just finished last night (my boyfriend received it today Cheesy

) Needless to say he is extremely happy with his gift. It was a ton of work, but I'm so pleased with it.

I made each character out of 1" squares and trimmed the outer edges. Then they were attached to the blue blocks using iron-on and stitch applique. Finished with satin binding. The back is blocks like the front, except their navy blue..somehow I never got a pic of the back

This is me and the boy holding up his gift. I love how the light blue resembles the sky in mario!

^^ I love that last photo bc thats when it finally dawned on him what I made and he was utterly in shock. Its the first time I had a gift for him that he had NO idea what it would be!

I'm so pleased with this project, but i'm also so glad its finished! I was really sad to see it go tho...I almost wouldn't let him take it with him! I have some more in progress/a mini tut on how I did it if anyone's interested. Thanks so much for looking!!!

~~~Tut~~~

First, I created patterns to follow by finding images of the original characters online and blowing them up large enough to count the pixels. To make them easier for me to see, I created a document in Excel with equally sized blocks that I changed their colors to create the characters. After that, I was able to print them all and generally make an estimate of how much fabric to buy of each color (I went to Walmart and bought cheap solids and some remnants to get the colors I wanted). Then, I cut the fabric into 1.5" by 1.5" squares (very annoying and time consuming...it made me a rotary cutter master) If your careful, you can cut a few layers at a time..

I essentially worked on the characters from the top down, working on two rows at a time. Its a little hard to explain, but I sewed two blocks together (the top row block to the second row block, and then working to the right) I tried to keep a steady flow of stitching, and sewed multiple blocks in one shot, and cut the thread to separate them after stitching a whole rows worth. Then I pressed them flat (trying to keep pressing to the dark side, since the lighter fabrics allowed the darker colors to show through)

Next I sewed the two block parts together into small four-patches

The hardest part for this was trying to keep track of the pattern and where everything was going to ultimately end up. There is probably an easier way to organize the pieces, but this is how I ended up doing it.

Next, I attached the four patches together to form a strip of the two rows that are being worked on.

**don't forget to keep pressing the seams flat while you work! It makes things go together so much nicer!

I repeated these steps to create 2 row segments, and attached them to one another carefully (lots and lots of pinning to keep everything straight!)

Also, since the outer blocks ended up having an extra 0.5" I just carefully used my rotary cutter to trim them

After completing each character, I cut large blocks of the sky blue, and used iron on applique to attach the characters and keep them in place until I could stitch around the outside of all of them. The binding was ready made satin binding (which I will never ever ever work with again. It was SUCH a pain!

Heres some extra photos to show you how the back ended up looking, and also some of the characters as they were being completed. I hope this helps everyone! I apologize again for taking so darn long...