The evolution of the Mario Blanket
One of my oldest quilt designs, and one of the most popular ones is the Tanooki Mario Quilt. I recently made a making of video for my youtube channel which you can watch below.
But before this standard design, it has had MANY designs.
This was my first digital prototype image of what I was going for. I grossly miscalculated the size (In my mind I thought, "Lets make the squares 3 inches, because that is a good size.") and it was shaping up to be a 9ft by 11ft. Thankfully, my boyfriend talked me into redesigning it so that I’d stop muttering “There has to be a nerd with a King Size bed out there." I ended up never making this design. And instead just made a Coin Quilt.The gimmick all my 8bit quilts were originally going to have was that they were Quillows (quilts with attached pillows) that could fold in on themselves and become a smaller nerdy pillow. So the Mario quilt was designed to fold into a question mark pillow. The prototype turned out to just be a cloud with the coin, but did at least get the quillow upgrade.
I actually never sold this ugly beast and eventually one cold night, claimed it as my own. I still cuddle under it and get to appreciate my own handiwork.
The second attempt was successful in getting Mario onto the blanket! This is what the back looked like with the hidden pocket. I always strive to try new things, so this time I made a leaf icon pillow to match the Tanooki power up.
From there I had two clients request custom designs. The first asked for it to have a cloud, which actually was a huge challenge - because the Mario universe has pretty ugly clouds that look like the bushes but white. I ended up making my own design that I felt fit the shape of the quilt and was attractive. The second client requested a black background, which I achieved by changing his overalls to blue and using two different brands of black so that you could see the outline of Ithe sprite against the background.
Since then I also expanded to have the blankets come in three sizes: cough throw, twin and queen!
Feel free to check out my Etsy store and order your own Mario Quilt today!
But before this standard design, it has had MANY designs.
This was my first digital prototype image of what I was going for. I grossly miscalculated the size (In my mind I thought, "Lets make the squares 3 inches, because that is a good size.") and it was shaping up to be a 9ft by 11ft. Thankfully, my boyfriend talked me into redesigning it so that I’d stop muttering “There has to be a nerd with a King Size bed out there." I ended up never making this design. And instead just made a Coin Quilt.The gimmick all my 8bit quilts were originally going to have was that they were Quillows (quilts with attached pillows) that could fold in on themselves and become a smaller nerdy pillow. So the Mario quilt was designed to fold into a question mark pillow. The prototype turned out to just be a cloud with the coin, but did at least get the quillow upgrade.
The second attempt was successful in getting Mario onto the blanket! This is what the back looked like with the hidden pocket. I always strive to try new things, so this time I made a leaf icon pillow to match the Tanooki power up.
From there I had two clients request custom designs. The first asked for it to have a cloud, which actually was a huge challenge - because the Mario universe has pretty ugly clouds that look like the bushes but white. I ended up making my own design that I felt fit the shape of the quilt and was attractive. The second client requested a black background, which I achieved by changing his overalls to blue and using two different brands of black so that you could see the outline of Ithe sprite against the background.
Since then I also expanded to have the blankets come in three sizes: cough throw, twin and queen!
Feel free to check out my Etsy store and order your own Mario Quilt today!
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