Super Mario Brothers

Some time ago, I came across Angela Pingel’s wonderful blog, Cut to Pieces, and I thought that her Super Mario Bros. Quilt Along was a terrific project.

However, the timing wasn’t right for me.  Nor did I really want to make an entire quilt out of 1-1/2 inch squares!

But I could make a pillow or two.

One of my grandsons is having a birthday in February.  Guess what he will be getting from Grandma?

I chose the Mushroom and Luigi blocks to create the pillows.  They are made from a combination of commercial and hand dyed fabrics.  Luigi’s face is washed out in the photos…he really is a nice peachy color!

The pillow front is a quilt sandwich…the block, a layer of batting, and a muslin backing.  It is quilted with Aurifil 50 wt. in the bobbin, and Superior Monopoly.  I chose the clear thread so that it would blend with all of the fabrics in the blocks.

It blended so well that I could barely see where I had quilted and where I still needed to quilt.  That was a challenge all by itself!

The pillow backs are a cotton print reinforced by a Pellon stabilizer.  I also sewed covered zippers into the backs.

An 18″ pillow form will fit into these pillow covers nicely.  For now, I stuffed a roll of batting into Luigi…just to get an idea of how it will look.  The pillow covers have to be shipped to my grandson, so they will be shipped without the pillow forms (but there will be a check included, so that Mom can go purchase them for him).

Perhaps this is something you might like to do for your own child/grandchild?  Head on over to Cut to Pieces; Angela has more characters to choose from than just Luigi and Mushroom. 

And maybe you are just ambitious enough to make the entire quilt!