Friday, July 13, 2012

It's Done, It's Done, It's Done!

I finally finished my Super Mario Quilt! I've been working on this quilt sine November 2011 - so about 9 months now. I don't think my husband really ever thought I would get it done and I'll admit, I even had my doubts! It was such a colossal project! I can't believe it's done!


Here are some fun facts for you: This quilt has 6,144 tiny little 1 inch squares in it. Each character has some blue borders around them and the whole thing is framed with a black border and white binding. It weighs a ton with all of those little seams inside of it! I'll have to find out exactly how much one of these days. It is also the biggest quilt I've ever made - about 72 x 105. I had to take it to the basketball court in the park next to us to get a place where I could spread it out for a picture. It is quite large!

I spent a lot of time on this quilt. It took me 3 nights worth of time cutting out all of those little squares - probably about 10 hours total. Then it took me about 5 hours to sew each character together, so about 120 hours for that. Then add in another 5 hours getting the borders around each character, then an hour sewing all the characters together, and another 30 minutes for the outer border. (This is really adding up!) It took 2.5 hours to pin baste it all. What really surprised me was how long it took to quilt the whole top! I thought it would take me maybe one evening - ha! I was way off! I spent about 20 hours just stitching in the ditch around each character and for the details inside their designs, and another 5 hours stippling in the blue background (so 25 hours there). A lot of that time was spent fighting with moving the quilt through the machine since it was so heavy. Then, another 6 hours to sew the binding on and finish hand stitching that to the back. So, what does that get me? Roughly 169 hours of time on this quilt or 21.125 work days or $2,535 in wages. Haha - so this quilt is worth a lot in labor and probably about $200 in materials when all is said and done. :) Just some fun facts for you.

So, I hope you've enjoyed seeing my journey in completing this quilt. It has been a lot of work, but also a lot of fun. My husband is very happy that he finally gets to use it now, and I'm happy that I can finally show it off! I'm sure this quilt will be a hit for several get togethers we have at our place. I already know it's a hit with the cats! :)

And, now for the winner of my Red, White & Blue giveaway...

Post #80, which was Scrapbook-ChickADoodle. I'll be contacting you by email to send off your package! Thanks to everyone who commented, and I hope you keep coming back to my blog for inspiration and creative projects even if I don't have something to give away.

Happy crafting everyone!


July Finishes

33 comments:

  1. Karen, You're amazing!!! This quilt it so awesome and I know you put a ton of effort into it! So glad to see that your efforts have come to fruition with such an amazing outcome! P.S. - I hear Longarms are pretty good with the quilting part. ;-) I know someone who definitely would have let you use her machine! Keep that in mind for the next one! Miss you lots and can't wait to see this quilt in person!

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  2. This quilt is amazing! I just starting following your blog with the red, white, and blue blog hop but I am in love with this quilt! I'm sure it's something that will be cherished a really long time...you did an AMAZING job!

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  3. This is a fantastic project and a great finish. You should be very proud of yourself. This was a Herculean feat. I'm sure it will be cherished.

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  4. What a wonderful finish, it looks fantastic! Your quilting really makes the characters stand out and I think you made a good call not using sashing. Hope you are doing something fun for your birthday ;)

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  5. That is one big passel of squares! The quilt looks fabulous, though!

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  6. OMG! That is so awesome. I love it, and I'm sure it will be super loved at your house down through the generations. What an amazing labor of love. Your labor value calculation was so fun.

    The combination of outlining the characters and stipple was such a perfect choice. IN the first photo, it looks like they're almost 3d on your quilt, since they stand out a bit from the flat stipple sections. What an great finish!!!!

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  7. So cool! My kids would be clamoring at me to make one if I showed your post around here! wow!

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  8. That is incredibly impressive, just WOW. It looks amazing! You should be really proud of that quilt! :D

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  9. My daughter would love that quilt!! Over 6000 pieces. That is amazing. You get a big huge whoop whoop from me.

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  10. Wow!! This quilt is amazing!! I just love it!! Congrats on a wonderful finish!! I showed this one to my 15 year old son and he loves it and wants one for his bed!! LOL!!!

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  11. Adorable , increĆ­ble.maravilloso,todas utilizaron mis adjetivos .

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  12. love the mario quilt! I just saw another one yesterday on a blog, I really like yours !! I might enter it into EQ for later- I will make it for my son- one day :-) unless you care to share an EQ file? sorry to be so pushy..... :-)

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  13. That is absolutely beyond amazing! (And I'm so glad my little boys aren't in the room looking over my shoulder because I know EXACTLY what they'd be demanding! )

    Thanks for sharing all of the information on the number of pieces and hours each step took.

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  14. THIS IS AMAZING!! I've featured you on 2 Pick Tuesdays- come grab your button! http://saynotsweetanne.com/2012/2-pick-tuesday-5/

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  15. Oh my gosh! This is so freaking rad! I LOVE IT. :)

    Julie
    www.jamscorner.com

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  16. what an amazing achievement! congratulations!

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  17. What a great achievement and it is certainly one of kind. Fantastic quilt, I know each of my kids (in their 30's or close to them) would die for this quilt!!

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  18. Hey, just wanted to stop by and let you know that I featured you over at Sugar Bee Crafts! I've pretty much had to show your quilt to everyone I've seen today.... It's so amazing! I hope your husband appreciates how much you love him! :-p

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  19. Oh my word, I LOVE this quilt...you did an AMAZING job on it and I am sure your husband loves it too!! I found your blog thru the Mario flickr group. You have given me some inspiration here :o)

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  20. Wow, this is awesome! Lucky husband. I love the effect of quilting too

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  21. Wow! That is absolutely amazing! What a fantastic quilt. You did an incredible job with it! I love the colors! And it was awesome to see your statistics. Beautifully done and thank you for linking up!

    xo -E

    P.S. I'm not sure where you got your patterns; it looks like maybe you designed them yourself? There's a site specifically for novelty quilting like this, Fandom in Stitches, that hosts patterns for things like this. I'm sure that Jennifer, the site owner, would love to share your quilt with the other readers, and if you wanted to share your patterns, she could help you do that too. That is a really amazing quilt!

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  22. Terrific! Amazing detail and so fun looking. Your hard work definitely shows in it! Thanks for linking to Craftastic Monday at Sew Can Do:)

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  23. This is seriously one of the coolest things I've ever seen EVER. EVER!! Great job, I love it. I wish I could quilt!!!

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  24. That is on fabulous quilt. It looks like it's a living breathing thing! You should be so proud of the finish !

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  25. Wow! That's amazing! You did a great job!

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  26. ir there some way i can snag the pattern you used? I am in the Super mario QAL and would love to add some of these blocks!

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  27. Wow, your quilt is freaking awesome!!! And such an inspiration for me because I want to add some more blocks to my Mario Quilt (I'm in the Super Mario Bros. QAL, too).

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  28. My little 4 year old grandson lives, sleeps and breathes Mario!!! I would love to make him something like this. My question is, where did you find all the individual patterns for each character?? If only there was a Counted Cross Stitch book out on the Mario characters, this would work perfectly!! And amazing quilt!! Bravo~!!!

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