February 25, 2012

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.

1 comment:

Elizabeth said...

Iris, you did an absolutely beautiful job with this block. I love all of your fabric choices! And I've seen it up close and personal and you did an absolutely spectacular job with the appliqué and embroidery. I think this block is just perfect for Esme & Carlisle!

xo -E