Valentines: Mario and Luigi Patchwork Pillow Cases

Here it is, what I've been doing for the last three weeks- and clearly patchwork is not my forte as I am far too impatient and don't own a decent ruler.  But my boyfriend likes Mario and all that geekery, and yet weirdly wants a patchwork quilt of said geekery.  And apparently so does the entire internet as the craft-geek worlds have collided in a rather wonderful way as people make crochet Cthulhu* ski masks, plentiful t-shirt designs with nerdy slogans, and nintendo controller underwear.  In fact Etsy has a section called Geekery alongside clothing, art, or housewares.

And I want in!  Also I wanted to do something nice for my boyfriend, and with Valentines Day approaching it seemed like the perfect idea, obviously a full quilt would be a bit much but a couple of pillow cases would be a piece of cake- surely?

 
I used a picture thingy of Mario boyfriend made with beads as my initial guide, exchanging one bead for one square of fabric.  Then turned the image around and the red parts green to make a guide for Luigi (also made his moustache brown not black). 

 Then I went through my own fabric stash, but had to buy most of the colours I needed.  I decided to keep the  colours plain but add the occasional patterned piece to make it more interesting and crafty. I bought a few plain cotton fat quarters and picked up some small pieces from the remnants bin of my local Samuel Taylors. I made my squares 3x3cm (although when I cut them out I added 1cm of seam allowance), which made a 45x48cm design. For Mario I needed 44 red squares, 25 brown, 7 black, 35 blue, 2 yellow, 38 pink (skin coloured), and 73 for the background which I did in light blue.  Luigi was the same except the red became green and four of the black became brown (for the moustache).

 

After that came the somewhat laborious process of sewing the squares together in rows (also when I discovered that my cutting out skills are fairly poor and none of the squares were the same size doh!).  Then I sewed the rows together, I added two small strips to the top and bottom and wider ones to the sides to make the full pillowcase size.  

Then I took my two piece of light blue fabric, which I had prepared earlier, one being 20cm longer than the other which became that inside hood bit which pillow cases have.  I folded that section over , then layered the shorter blue fabric and the Mario design over the top.  I did French seams, you sew it wrong sides first then turn it inside out and sew it right sides together which hides all the seam mess inside the French seam.  Of course I did it all wrong several times and had to unpick and resew.
Then I got to do it all again for Luigi.

I can now tell you the products were well received, but boyfriend did turn it over to the plain/smoother side of the pillow case to sleep  So nearly perfect. :)

*scary octopus type thing