Flying_V_Goddess

I started quilting almost three years ago and I've been doing about one quilt a year so far (and planning dozens of others). Except last year. Last year my sewing machine went beserk. Everytime I turned it on the needle would start going about 90mph. Couldn't figure out how to fix it until finally, a couple months ago, I was able to pry open my sewing machine pedal and discover the throttle was jammed.

I'm finally getting back into quilting, thanks to my God son. He currently has the first quilt I ever made, which was made the Christmas before he was born. He's going on three and he's about to grow out of it. So the little quilting lightbulb went off in my head and I came up with the most insane quilting project I ever thought up off (and I've come up with some crazy stuff).

The little guy is into Super Mario (comes from having parents and friends of parents who are gamers). Everytime he sees anything he reconizes as Mario-related he'll point it out and say "Mario!" So my idea was to take pictures of the items from an older Mario game (back when games were in pixels) and make them into blocks. I spent HOURS (over a span of two nights) finding 20 items (ended up being from a re-release of Super Mario 3), sketching them, drawing coded keys of each block, counting each color and writing down how much of each color a block needed, etc.

This is why I call this project insane:
There are 20 blocks with 5 solid color "filler" blocks with 2 1/2" lattice in-between
Each block is 9", 18 squares by 18 squares
The squares are 1" (so they'll finish to 1/2")
There are 324 squares to each block which means
There are 6480 1" squares
...and I think I can do this before Christmas

Here's an example of one of the blocks (the Super Mushroom)
[IMG]http://i132.photobucket.com/albums/q...s/Mushroom.jpg[/IMG]

And here's the idea I had for the layout. The white squares is where a block is going to go. There's also five filler blocks that are the same color as the lattice in-between. I'm not sure if I'll go with the red, but I chose that for now because Mario is usually associated with the color red.
[IMG]http://i132.photobucket.com/albums/q...uiltlayout.jpg[/IMG]

I'm on the lookout for small pieces of cotton solids for this quilt (1/4 yard and smaller). The blocks need a total of 22 colors and a lot of them could easily come from extra fabric left over from another project. So to any quilters who have extra pieces of cotton solids that you're willing to give away, I put up a Classifieds thread with all the colors I need (except black and white) and the yardage/number of squares I need for each color. http://www.quiltingboard.com/posts/list/28470.page

As crazy as it is, I'm really psyched about doing this quilt. Its been a year and a half since my last one and I'm long over-due to make another one. :)

Lisa_wanna_b_quilter

What an awesome project! You got to love the classic Mario games!

Flying_V_Goddess

Oh, its going to be fantastic! :D

LucyInTheSky

I'm actually doing something similar for my boyfriend but with Metroid (another classic Nintendo game). The hardest part is sketching the quilt. From there, it's super easy because it's squares. It's a lot of square, sure (mine will be over 2,000 1" squares when done), but it's squares and rectangles.

If you google "mario quilt" they have some of the shapes made into the pixel blocks like you showed, in case you need more or more ideas.

I'm attaching the first block I've made (all the pieces are made, just need to be put together) and the video game cover. It matches pretty well.

Lisa_wanna_b_quilter

Very, very cool.

Flying_V_Goddess

Metroid, huh? That is very cool. :)

LucyInTheSky

Yeah, thanks. I just need to turn it into a quilt before Xmas! You'll be amazed how quickly the sewing actually goes. Longest time is sketching, then cutting, quickest is assembly. I would suggest nesting your seams, so you press one row one way, the next row another way. Since they're all the same size squares (in theory), it helps to get them all together and keep them the same size

Flying_V_Goddess

Oh yes. Sketching is definatly going to be the longest part. I spent about two or three hours looking at the sprites of the items and sketching them out onto graph paper and writing down all the colors down. Then I re-drew them onto more graph paper and spent at least two full nights figuring out how many squares of color were in each block...and on a couple I spent an hour figuring that out because I had counted wrong so my numbers didn't total up right and it took forever to figure out where I went wrong.

Nesting? I usually press my seams open.

Bevanger

I can't wait to see it done. Its gonna be so cool :D

LucyInTheSky

I burn myself when I press them open :). If you find you have trouble lining up the squares, you might want to try nesting, since I barely used any pins in the entire quilt top.

I'm really excited to see pictures! If you could, PM when you post pictures, in case I miss it.