Leap Day Giveaway: Twilight Style

Dibs. –Felix, New Moon, page 465


Happy Leap Day! We're excited to participate in the blog hop. We have a cute little apple-shaped memo pad and three Twilight-themed fabric postcards (Team Edward, Team Jacob and Team Bella/Edward).

• To enter, simply leave a comment on this post.
• Non-blogging/non-Google users and international entrants are welcome.
• If you do not have a Google account, use the name/url (url optional) commenting option and make sure you leave your e-mail in your comment in the following format: address (at) domain name (dot) com.
• Comments with no contact information will be deleted.
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• Duplicate comments will be deleted. Comment moderation is on, so don't panic when your comment doesn't show up. I'm notified of new comments and will approve them periodically throughout the day, after which they'll show up on the post.
• The giveaway will close at 10:00 pm CST on Wednesday, February 29^th. Winner will be chosen by random drawing and notified by e-mail and announced here by noon March 2^nd.

Don't forget to check out all of the other great Leap Day Giveaways!

Leap Day Giveaway Guidelines:
• Choose something to give away on Leap Day. Keep it simple. You can make something, give away a bit of your stash, offer a service, buy your favorite gadget to give away or offer something completely non-crafty. Your blog, you choose.
• To participate in the blog hop, your giveaway must start and end on Leap Day (February 29, 2012) in your time zone. You can open it at 10:00 am and close it at 10:00 pm, or go midnight to midnight, or anything in between. Your blog, your rules.
• Your giveaway winner does not have to be announced on Leap Day, but should be notified within a reasonable amount of time.
• Post your giveaway and then link up here. Please remember to link to your specific post (instructions here). Please also include the Leap Day Giveaway button somewhere in your giveaway post.
<center><a href="http://emsewandsew.blogspot.com/2012/02/leap-day-giveaway-blog-hop.html" target="_blank" title="Leap Day Giveaway"><img alt="Leap Day Giveaway" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh-3g4_ks4SUR7qBzzZAzX-ubuz8wKiLBN0oACULkUMf6sOgX3KxIkTvcDvhKxFZVH4sJVriFJuQca41qKSNoo59736yrtWLYrASuBAixYVEhAQiXsdga6iADaRuJ2Z-mUmYcc5HW9KfDY/s250/Leap%2520Day%2520Giveaway%2520Buttom%2520%2520Medium.jpg" /></a></center>
• The linky will open at noon MST on February 28^th and close at 10:00 am MST on March 1^st, to allow for people in different time zones to participate.
• If you want to include the linky tool on your giveaway post then others can link up from your blog and it will automatically update in every location the linky is posted. The code is available here or under the linky below. If you choose to add the linky to your post, you MUST include the above rules so that it is fair play for all.
• Consider changing your comment settings to the pop-up window option for faster and easier commenting for all the visitors who'll be stopping by your blog. Instructions can be found here.

Stephenie Meyer Quilt: Alice & Jasper

Of the three boys, one ... was taller, leaner, but still muscular, and honey blond. ... The short girl was pixielike, thin in the extreme, with small features. Her hair was a deep black, cropped short and pointing in every direction.
–Bella Swan, Twilight, page 18

“That's ... Jasper Hale. The one who left was Alice Cullen; they all live together with Dr. Cullen and his wife. They're all together though —Jasper and Alice, I mean. And they live together.” –Jessica Stanley, Twilight, page 20

“I was in Philadelphia. There was a storm, and I was out during the day — something I was not completely comfortable with yet. I knew standing in the rain would attract attention, so I ducked into a little half-empty diner. My eyes were dark enough that no one would notice them, though this meant I was thirsty, and that worried me a little.

“She was there — expecting me, naturally.” He chuckled once. “She hopped down from the high stool at the counter as soon as I walked in and came directly toward me. That's the only interpretation of her behavior my past had to offer. But she was smiling. And the emotions that were emanating from her were like nothing I'd ever felt before.

“‘You've kept me waiting a long time,’ she said.”

I didn't realize Alice had come to stand behind me again.

“And you ducked your head, like a good Southern gentleman, and said, ‘I'm sorry, ma'am.’” Alice laughed at the memory.

Jasper smiled down at her. “You held out your hand, and I took it without stopping to make sense of what I was doing. For the first time in almost a century, I felt hope.” –Jasper Hale, Alice Cullen and Bella Swan, Eclipse, page 301

Iris created the image in the crystal ball, layering different elements that represent Jasper in photo shop, including Jackson Rathbone's eyes. The image was transferred to printable fabric and placed in this block inside a crystal ball, which represents Alice's ability to see the future. The crystal ball pattern was designed by Jennifer Ofenstein and the block was pieced by former member, Shannon.

Stephenie Meyer Quilt: Rosalie & Emmett

Of the three boys, one was big — muscled like a serious weight lifter, with dark, curly hair. ... The tall [girl] was statuesque. She had a beautiful figure. ... Her hair was golden, gently waving to the middle of her back.
–Bella Swan, Twilight, page 18

“That's ... Emmett Cullen and Rosalie ... Hale. ... They all live together with Dr. Cullen and his wife. ... They're all together though — Emmett and Roslie. ... And they live together.”
–Jessica Stanley, Twilight, page 20

“Early spring is Emmett's favorite bear season — they're just coming out of hibernation, so they're more irritable.”
–Edward Cullen, Twilight, page 215

“Would you like to hear my story, Bella? It doesn't have a happy ending — but which of ours does? If we had happy endings, we'd all be under gravestones now. ...

“I lived in a different world than you do, Bella. My human world was a much simpler place. It was nineteen thirty-three. I was eighteen, and I was beautiful. My life was perfect.”
–Rosalie Hale, Eclipse, page 154

“Did Edward ever tell you what led to this?” she asked, gesturing to her glorious immortal body.

I nodded slowly, suddenly somber. “He said it was close to what happened to me that time in Port Angeles, only no one was there to save you.” –Rosalie Hale and Bella Cullen, Eclipse, page 153

“You know that I saved Emmett from a bear that was mauling him, and carried him home to Carlisle.”
–Rosalie Hale, Eclipse, page 166

The grizzly bear pattern was designed by Linda Hibbert of Silver Linings Origials and pieced by former member, Shannon.

Stephenie Meyer Quilt: Carlisle & Esme

The walls, the high-beamed ceiling, the wooden floors, and the thick carpets were all varying shades of white.
Twilight, pg. 322

The long hall at the top of the stairs was paneled with a honey-colored wood, the same as the floorboards.
Twilight, pg. 329

I deliberated for a moment, then left the room, crossing the hall to Carlisle and Esme's suite.  As usual, Esme's desk was stacked with plans and blueprints, everything neatly laid out in tall piles. 
Breaking Dawn, pg. 672

It seemed obvious to me that the best symbols to portray Carlisle and Esme would be related to their interests.  He’s a doctor; she loves restoring old homes.  I can picture Esme pouring over a blueprint, but as soon as Carlisle comes home, he goes straight up to their suite, places his doctor’s bag and stethoscope on the table, then greets her with a kiss.  She stops her work and then they go curl up together on a sofa to chat about their day, or perhaps go for a walk along the river.

So I decided to make Esme a wood drafting table.  On it I’ve placed blueprints for Bella and Edward’s cottage, wood, stone and tile samples, plus a shopping list of supplies for building it.  At the bottom of the list Alice has added on her priorities.

The Cullen house is all wood and light creamy tones.  I started with the floor because I knew I had the perfect honey-colored wood planks fabric in my stash.  I carefully fussy cut it to piece it so that it was at an angle to match the perspective of the table.  For the walls, I picked a tone on tone off-white scroll patterned “wallpaper”.  To me it looked classic and like something Esme would have decorated with.  For the table I adapted the “Hardback Book” pattern from Jennifer Ofenstein at Sewhooked, adding legs on the bottom.  I used - and added to -  the divisions on the cover of her pattern to separate a piece of blue fabric with white lines to represent a blueprint, a gray fabric with circles and dots on it to represent landscaping plans, and several architectural type patterned fabrics for the wood, stone and tile.  The list I typed up in Word, in very small fonts, then printed it on Printed Treasures printable fabric.  I asked my husband, who is a better artist than I am, to draw a doctor’s bag and stethoscope for me.  The stethoscope I stitched directly on the table background, the bag I cut out and appliquéd on.

What I really enjoyed about creating this block was using all the neat wood/stone fabrics I’d been collecting for a while and also imagining Esme and Carlisle in a domestic setting.  No threats to their family, no visitors, just a normal day of working/projects, then some quality time together.

Stephenie Meyer Quilt: Vegetarian Vampire Eyes

There was something different, and I couldn’t quite pinpoint what that difference was. I examined Edward the most carefully. His skin was less pale, I decided — flushed from the snow fight maybe — the circles under his eyes much less noticeable. But there was something more. I pondered, staring, trying to isolate the change.

I glanced up, and he was staring at me, that same inexplicable look of frustration in his eyes. Suddenly I identified that subtle difference in his face.

“Did you get contacts?” I blurted out unthinkingly.

He seemed puzzled by my unexpected question. “No.”

“Oh,” I mumbled. “I thought there was something different about your eyes.”

He shrugged and looked away.

In fact, I was sure there was something different. I vividly remembered the flat black color of his eyes the last time he’d glared at me — the color was striking against the background of his pale skin and his auburn hair. Today, his eyes were a completely different color: a strange ocher, darker than butterscotch, but with the same golden tone. I didn’t understand how that could be, unless he was lying for some reason about the contacts.
–Bella Swan and Edward Cullen, Twilight, pages 41 and 46

Traditional Jewel Box block, pieced by former Twi-Quilter, Jean.

Stephenie Meyer Quilt: “My” Jacob

“. . . You started mumbling some nonsense about 'Jacob, my Jacob.'” I could hear the pain, even in the whisper. “Your Jacob enjoyed that quite a lot.”

I stretched my neck up, straining to reach my lips to the edge of his jaw. I couldn't see into his eyes. He was staring up at the ceiling of the tent.

“Sorry,” I murmured. “That's just the way I differentiate.”

“Differentiate?”

“Between Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. Between the Jacob I like and the one who annoys the hell out of me” I explained.
–Edward Cullen and Bella Swan, Eclipse, page 512

Cat designed the Paw Print pattern, for this block and it was pieced by former Twi-Quilter, Jean.

Stephenie Meyer Quilt: Bella's Truck

“I found a good car for you, really cheap,” [Charlie] announced when we were strapped in.

“What kind of car?" I was suspicious of the way he said 'good car for you' as opposed to just 'good car.'”

“Well, it’s a truck actually, a Chevy. ... Really, Bella, the thing runs great. They don’t build them like that anymore.”

The thing, I thought to myself . . . it had possibilities – as a nickname, at the very least.

There, parked on the street in front of the house that never changed, was my new — well, new to me — truck. It was a faded red color, with big, rounded fenders and a bulbous cab. To my intense surprise, I loved it. I didn’t know if it would run, but I could see myself in it. Plus, it was one of those solid iron affairs that never gets damaged — the kind you see at the scene of an accident, paint unscratched, surround by the pieces of the foreign car it had destroyed. –Charlie and Bella Swan, Twilight, pages 6-8

The Red Truck pattern was designed by Cat and pieced by Joyce.

From Joyce:
To find fabrics, I went to my LQS for the first time. I loved the batik greens with leaves. I wanted the sky to look overcast like Forks so Edward could be out and about. I used a couple of reds for the truck and embroidered the grill with a chain stitch. The headlights were in my button box. The tires are made with 2 buttons. The black buttons are plastic. I heated a metal skewer and melted the plastic between the buttonholes so the shank on the metal button would slide through. The metal buttons were my grandmother's and looked so perfect, I had to use them.

Stephenie Meyer Quilt: Vampire Baseball

[Edward] led me a few feet through the tall, wet ferns and draping moss, around a massive hemlock tree, and w were there, on the edge of an enormous open field in the lap of the Olympic peaks. It was twice the size of any baseball stadium. . . . Farther out I could see Jasper and Alice, at least a quarter of a mile apart, appearing to throw something back and forth, but I never saw any ball. It looked like Carlisle was marking bases, but could they really be that far apart? –Bella Swan, Twilight, page 367

Elizabeth designed this block {pattern available here} and it was pieced by Wanda.

From Wanda:
While looking for fabric for another project I had the good fortune of finding the miniture forest fabric which I used for the background. It totally gave the feeling of the baseball field as being the clearing in the middle of a wooded area just like in the book and movie. And while the vampires didn't have a perfect baseball field in the traditional sense this pieced field takes the looker right away to that part of the story. For some reason I never could get the home plate exactly perfect although I tried several times, but in the end there is no doubt it is vampire baseball! And just to complete it I found baseball and bat buttons. At first I thought I would appliqué a bat and ball but the buttons were perfect and looked the best to me. I loved making this block.

Stephenie Meyer Quilt: Charlie

Charlie is Police Chief Swan to the good people of Forks.
–Bella Swan, Twilight, page 5

Charlie's block was designed and pieced by Jerri Lynn using Jennifer Ofenstein's Two Tone Star pattern.

From Jerri Lynn:
When creating Charlie’s block, I knew I wanted to showcase Charlie’s position as the chief of police and his love of fishing. These two traits, along with his love of his daughter, are the things that most people know and remember about Charlie. So, I used Jennifer’s star pattern as my base. I created the fishing rod with a length of grosgrain ribbon, a couple of beads, and a cute little fish button.

Stephenie Meyer Quilt: The Forks Forest

The trail . . . snaked around the Sitka spruces and the hemlocks, the yews and the maples. I only vaguely knew the names of the trees around me, and all I knew was due to Charlie pointing them out to me from the cruiser window in earlier days. There were many I didn’t know, and others I couldn’t be sure about because they were so covered in green parasites. –Bella Swan, Twilight, page 136

The Forks Forest block was designed and pieced by Wanda.

From Wanda:
My simple Forks trees were inspired by the simple cone trees I saw in a quilt book by Jean Wells. I didn't use any of her blocks but I liked the simplicity of the iron on cone trees with a machine blanket stitch so I made them for my block. I chose different greens for each of the trees to set them apart. I used a water drizzled looking gray fabric for the background which of course gives the feeling of rainy Forks. My Forks sign is a simple stlylized version that reminds you of the real detailed one in the movie which you see going in and out of Forks, Washington.

Stephenie Meyer Quilt: Breaking Dawn Book Cover

No longer just a nightmare, the line of black advanced on us through the icy mist stirred up by their feet.

We're going to die, I thought in panic. I was desperate for the precious one I guarded, but even to think of that was a lapse in attention I could not afford.

They ghosted closer, their dark robes billowing slightly with the movement. I saw their hands curl into bone-colored claws. They drifted apart, angling to come at us from all sides. We were outnumbered. It was over.

And then, like a burst of light from a flash, the whole scene was different. Yet nothing changed—the Volturi still stalked toward us, poised to kill. All that really changed was how the picture looked to me. Suddenly, I was hungry for it. I wanted them to charge. The panic changed to bloodlust as I crouched forward, a smile on my face, and the growl ripped through my bared teeth. –Bella Cullen, Breaking Dawn, pages 367-368

The black and white checkerboard, representing the Breaking Dawn book cover was designed and pieced by Elizabeth.

From Elizabeth:
When I worked out the design for the center of the Stephenie Meyer Quilt, I had no digital quilt design experience. I went with what I knew, which was to get out the paper and make a full-scale model of the quilt.

It was really good to have the dimensions down before I actually started working with the fabric. The pattern served as a great reference when it came time to make the representation of the Breaking Dawn book cover. I knew exactly how many squares I'd need and the placement before I started. I strip pieced as much as possible because at 1”, all those black and white squares were enough to make you go cross-eyed.

I traced the white queen and red pawn directly from the cover of the book and appliquéd the chess pieces, raw-edge, to the bottom left corner of the block. When Vivian quilted them, she added in the ridge details to make them look three-dimensional.

This chessboard pieces completed the center of the quilt.

The New Moon, Eclipse and Breaking Dawn book cover representations were my contributions to the quilt, as well as the finaly assembly and binding. It was such a fun project to be a part of and I have really enjoyed the friendships I have in our little group.

Stephenie Meyer Quilt: Eclipse Book Cover

The clouds I can handle. But I can't fight with an eclipse.
–Jacob Black, Eclipse, page 600

The design for the ribbon, representing the Eclipse book cover was designed and pieced by Elizabeth.

From Elizabeth:
As we discussed ideas for representations of the Eclipse cover on the Stephenie Meyer Quilt, we decided that using ribbon would work the best to make the blocks. It seemed like a simple enough idea. But when it came time to put these blocks together, I was a little nervous. There was no pattern to fall back on. It was just me and the fabric and the ribbon. I cut the fabric and then lost my nerve. I skipped ahead and worked on the Breaking Dawn blocks.

When I finished the checkerboards for the Breaking Dawn section, and was out of excuses for putting off the ribbons, I worked up my courage and began getting the ribbon ready. I used a good sharp pair of scissors to cut away the selvage edge a few inches into the ribbon, and then pulled the cross fibers out about an inch down. Then I snipped away the remaining fibers, using the book cover as model for how much to snip away and what to leave. When that was complete, I pinned the ribbon in place, again using the book as my guide, and sewed the edges down.

Rather than repeat the same pattern in all four blocks, I copies the book cover for just the triangle section on the left and wove the ribbon in and out through the other three blocks. Here are the first three sections of the center medallion.

Stephanie Meyer Quilt: New Moon Book Cover

Tonight the sky was utterly black. Perhaps there was no moon tonight—a lunar eclipse, a new moon. –Bella Swan, New Moon, page 74

The tulip, representing the New Moon book cover was designed by Cat {pattern available here} and pieced by Elizabeth.

From Elizabeth:
In 2009, we decided to make a quilt for Stephenie Meyer, including our favorite scenes from her Twilight series as well as representation of each of the four book covers. When we first started working on ideas,Cat's patternfor the parrot tulip on the cover of New Moon wasn't yet available to the public. As a matter of fact, we didn't know she had a pattern drawn up since we were just getting to know each other and she didn't participate in the early planning stages of this quilt. Several patterns and ideas were tossed around but nothing seemed just right. We had briefly contacted Cat about using some of her other paper piecing patterns in the quilt and when we couldn't come up with something that was right, we contacted her to see if she had any suggestions. She said she had a pattern for the tulip, but it hadn't been tested. She sent it to me and I made up a test block.

I was hoping that the tulip would fit into our quilt design at the size it was designed, but it was too big. The polka-dotted fabric I had chosen didn't really work either. I reduced the pattern to 80%, chose a different red and gave it another try. This time we had a winner.

I put a sashing around the Twilight book cover block and then framed it with the four tulips. It was really fun to see the center of the quilt starting to take shape.

Stephenie Meyer Quilt: Twilight Book Cover

“It's twilight,” Edward murmured, looking at the western horizon, obscured as it was with clouds. His voice was thoughtful, as if his mind were somewhere far away. I stared at him as he gazed unseeingly out the windshield.

I was still staring when his eyes suddenly shifted back to mine.

“It's the safest time of day for us,” he said, answering the unspoken question in my eyes. “The easiest time. But also the saddest in a way . . . the end of another day, the return of the night. Darkness is so predictable, don't you think?” He smiled wistfully. –Edward Cullen, Twilight, page 232-233

This block sits at the center of Piece, Love, Twilight, the quilt we made for Stephenie Meyer in 2009, and is a representation of the Twilight book cover. The Forbidden Fruit pattern was created by our very own Cat and this block was pieced by former Twi-Quilter Shannon.

We have a Winner!

The drawing is complete. The winner of our Breaking Dawn: Part 1 Quilt is Melissa Clark!!! Melissa, an email has been sent to you.

Thank you to everyone who donated to such wonderful causes.