Stephenie Meyer Quilt: A Quilt Story

A couple of days ago Iris posted the announcement that the Stephenie Meyer Quilt which the Twilight Quilters Coven made was finished and on it's way to be quilted. I thought it was high time that a entry be published detailing how the quilt came to be.

At the beginning of April, the ladies that had been together at Twilight Moms supporting each other as they worked through the steps of the Twilight Mystery Quilt, started talking about how to fill their quilting time until the next steps were released since the quilt had been indeterminably delayed. We had all become good friends over the months despite none of us having ever met in person. We wanted to be able to continue to have something to work on together and chat about so as not to lose touch with each other.

In only a couple of days we had decided to make a quilt for Stephenie Meyer, designed the quilt, and organized into a quilter's coven. As quilters, we all thought what better way for us to show our love for Twilight and Stephenie Meyer than to make a quilt. We soon decided on our name through voting and the Twilight Quilters Coven was born!

We wanted all four of the books' iconic covers to be represented. Other blocks were suggested to represent characters and book events. A quote from each book would be chosen through a vote and used as cornerstones. We decided that a medallion-style quilt would best accomodate all of our needs.

Elizabeth graciously accepted leadership of our project and creatively organized all of our ideas into a quilt layout. She posted a dedicated thread at Twilight Moms for the quilt, drafted the quilt into a picture model, and set our deadline (roughly May 31st).



Elizabeth, Iris, Lisa, Liz, Jean, Jerri Lynn, Joyce, Shannon and Wanda would sew the blocks. All the blocks would be sent to Elizabeth and she would sew them all into the quilt top. The quilt would be quilted by a longarm quilter. Our goal would be to give it to Stephenie Meyer, hopefully personally.

We were fortunate that there were already some Twilight patterns available. Catherine Magraith had designed patterns for the Twilight Hands/Forbidden Fruit, Pawprint, and La Push Beach. The patterns are posted at Sewhooked under guest patterns. She granted permission for their use in our quilt and made a couple more unpublished Twilight patterns available to us: Bella's Truck, New Moon Parrot Tulips, and Bella's Bracelet. A Jennifer Ofenstein Sewhooked Twilight pattern was used for the Jacob Howling Wolf.

The rest of the blocks were either designed by the individual participants or modified from existing non-Twilight patterns to suit the quilt. Iris designed and constructed these blocks: The Meadow, Edward's Crystal Heart, Isle Esme/Feathers (using the Sewhooked Jennifer Ofenstein Quill pattern as it's foundation), Esme/Carlisle, and The Volturi: Clock Tower at Volterra. Jerri Lynn designed Charlie's block and machine embroidered the cornerstone book quotes. Elizabeth designed Vampire Baseball, Edward's Eyes, the Eclipse Ribbon, and the Breaking Dawn Chessboard. Wanda designed the Forks Trees. Joyce modified a pattern for Renesmee's Locket from a Shae Merritt Zelda Bomb pattern located at Sewhoooked. Shannon used a Jennifer Ofenstein Sewhooked Harry Potter pattern for the Alice/Jasper Crystal Ball.

Our project gained the attention of Vivian Love of Quilts with Love. Vivian became a Twilight Convert recently (read her blog entry here) because, afterall, who can resist Twilight? Vivian volunteered to donate the batting and quilt the Twilight Quilt.

A few changes were made along the way, but the quilt finished essentially as we planned it. Lisa and Liz had to drop out, but the Edward/Bella Cottage block was reassigned to Shannon. The Lion/Lamb block was substituted for the Wedding Flowers block since Shannon successfully pieced the Edward/Bella Wedding Dance block. Edward's Eyes was changed slightly to make it easier to construct as a 5" block.



The quilt has arrived safely at Quilts with Love. We all can't wait to see it and some of us are even planning a trip to see the finished quilt. It wouldn't be fair that only Elizabeth and Vivian get to see it. We all may finally meet each other.

Stay tuned for more member entries about individual blocks in the quilt like Iris' entry for The Volturi: Clock Tower at Volterra.