Breaking Dawn Charity Quilt: The Denali Coven

“Are there a lot of . . . your kind?” I was surprised. How many of them could walk among us undetected?

“No, not many. But most won't settle in any one place. Only those like us, who've given up hunting you people” — a sly glance in my direction — “can live together with humans for any length of time. We've only found one other family like ours, in a small village in Alaska. We lived together for a time, but there were so many of us that we became too noticeable. Those of us who live . . . differently tend to band together.”
–Bella Swan and Edward Cullen, Twilight, page 290

Behind my human friends were my new cousins-in-law, the Denali vampire clan. I realized I was holding my breath as the vampire in front—Tanya, I assumed from the strawberry tint in her blond curls—reached out to embrace Edward. Next to her, three other vampires with golden eyes stared at me with open curiosity. One woman had long, pale blond hair, straight as corn silk. The other woman and the man beside her were both black-haired, with a hint of an olive tone to their chalky complexions.

And they were all four so beautiful that it made my stomach hurt.
–Bella Cullen, Breaking Dawn, page 53-54

“We stand with Carlisle,” Tanya said. “And we fight with him.” –Tanya, Breaking Dawn, page 659

Design and piecing by Joyce

In 2003, I got to go to Alaska. The day we left Denali, we had a clear view of Mt. McKinley. I used pictures from my trip to make the design for this block. I liked the variation of color shades in the sky fabric. I used white glittery fabric for the main section of the mountain. For other peaks, I used white fabric with silver swirls. The transition area is gray fabric with black, sparkling leaves. I also used this fabric on the month of January block for the New Moon quilt.

My pictures showed a stream coming down the mountain and flowing into a lake, so I cut a piece of tie-dyed fabric that went from white to blue. The greens are some of my favorites. I used the one with the larger print on the School Days block on the Eclipse quilt. Satin stitching around most of the sections defines and highlights different aspects of the scene.

If you want to do a block like this, it helps to think it through in layers and build it as you go from further away to close by. I love how it looks!