Mario Pillow

For W's redone room, I found this tutorial online just a few days before I needed it to be finished!  I love the idea and how they made an entire quilt, but I had hours to work with, not whole days.  I decided to use fleece and just make one Mario for a pillow.  (Note to self and anyone who cares...  Next time, use fleece that is all the same weight.  The various thicknesses did not help the squares line up.)
First, I had to cut out 272 2-inch squares.  I love my rotary cutter.

I then, used the grid in the tutorial to get each row stacked in order.  This helps speed up the sewing, but don't forget to double check when doing the actual sewing.

Then, after sewing a few rows, I would sew the rows together.  This really makes it look like something that might actually be finished before his birthday!  Here is how it all went together.  I took a picture about every 12-18 hours.  I just did it a bit here and there since I was home with sick toddlers for most of it.

 Then, I added a border all around Mario, so that he would not lose any body parts on the pillow edges and look weird.

 I cut a piece of fabric for the backing.  This is where I should have used pins, but time was running out.  I sewed them together, rights sides together, leaving a hole for turning right side out.  Trimmed the corners, turned it right sides out, stuffed it with 3 bags of stuffing, and hand sewed the opening shut!

 Add finished pillow to what I now know if called "Video Game HQ."

I will probably revisit this tutorial to make him a quilt, but that will just have to wait.  I can only handle so many tiny squares in one week.