The Great 8-Bit Mario Quilt Adventure

For my brothers Christmas/birthday present, I decided to make an 8-bit Mario quilt. I concepted the idea in September of last year and just now finished with it. It was a huge, extensive process and many many hours of work!

The idea came from this sprite that I found online when trying to think of something geeky and fun that my brother would appreciate. We grew up playing Zelda and Mario, so when I found this sprite, I knew that I had to make something from it.

It’s made with 252 4″ squares, measuring at about  48″ x 60″. I hand-dyed the grey background and thrifted the peach from an old twin bedsheet. Instead of brown boots, I just used black. I also modified the sprite slightly by adding an extra red block for Mario’s suspenders.

Here’s the quilt after piecing and quilting – I hadn’t added the yellow binding yet.

I cheated and used yellow jersey knit for the binding  because 1) I hate binding; 2) I suck at binding; and 3) I wanted something fun as a border. I knew that the knit would curl up in the wash and hide any – ahem – mistakes that I made during the binding process.

I used a black/white checkerboard fabric for the backing. Despite my original concerns, it hides the colored thread pretty well.

Here’s a quick list of the time/resources I used to make it below.

Resources:

• Thrifted Sheets – $5.00
• Rit Dye – $10.00
• Fabric – $60.00
• Binding – $5.00

Time:

• Dyeing  - 4 hours
• Cutting – 3 hours
• Piecing – 10 hours
• Quilting – 9 hours
• Binding – 2 hours
• Clean Up/Prettify –  2 hour

Total: about 30 hours of labor and $80 in materials.

I’m so glad that this project is finished. While I enjoyed the process and the end result of my hard work, it was a lot.of.work. However, in the end it was all worth it because my brother absolutely loves the quilt and isn’t mad that the quilt was only six weeks late!

About these ads