Stephenie Meyer Quilt: Bella & Edward's Wedding Dance

“Let me introduce you to my wife.” It was the first time Edward had said that word since it was officially true; he seemed like he would explode with satisfaction saying it now.
–Bella Cullen, Breaking Dawn, page 54

Strike Up the Band part 1 and part 2 pattern by Liz Schwartz & Stephen Seifert, piecing by former member, Shannon.

Stephenie Meyer Quilt: And So the Lion Fell In Love With the Lamb

“And so the lion fell in love with the lamb . . . ,” he murmured. I looked away, hiding my eyes as I thrilled to the word.

“What a stupid lamb,” I sighed.

“What a sick, masochistic lion.” He stared into the shadowy forest for a long moment.
–Edward Cullen and Bella Swan, Twilight, page 274

Roaring Lion pattern by Linda Hibbert of Silver Linings Originals. Lamb pattern by Four Twin Sisters. Pieced by former member, Shannon.

Stephenie Meyer Quilt: The Volturi: Clock Tower at Volterra

A deep, booming chime echoed through the square. It throbbed in the stones under my feet. . . . I started screaming as I ran.

“Edward!” I screamed, knowing it was useless. The crowd was too loud, and my voice was breathless with exertion. But I couldn't stop screaming.

The clock tolled again.

. . . “Edward, no!” I screamed, but my voice was lost in the roar of the chime.

. . . The clock tolled, and he took a large stride toward the light.

“No!” I screamed. “Edward, look at me!”

He wasn't listening. He smiled very slightly. He raised his foot to take the step that would put him directly in the path of the sun.
–Bella Swan, New Moon, page 449-451

The Volturi block has turned out to be my favorite that I designed and pieced for the Stephenie Quilt. Elizabeth originally suggested a tower to represent the Volturi, but it wasn’t in the original quilt plans. That kept gnawing at me. I felt that we needed the Volturi represented; they are an integral part of the Twilight world. One member had a baby and unfortunately but understandably chose not to participate, which left her block, the Wedding Flowers up for grabs. Since Shannon was already working on the Bella and Edward’s Wedding Dance block that gave us the perfect opportunity to substitute, and I greedily excitedly volunteered.

I have some wonderful architectural fabrics that I thought would be perfect! And right at that time filming in Montepulciano was in full swing…. I was inspired! I looked at the photos of the tower in Montepulciano and Volterra and really loved the filming location best. It was very inspirational to have great photos of the building with the flags and the custom built fountain. The challenge was to translate that wonderful setting into a 5” fabric block!

I pulled out my old engineering graphing paper one afternoon and drew it out, then laboriously went about figuring out the dimensions of everything. That was tough for me because I had to use increments of ⅛”, which my brain is not used to doing! I finished with dimensions around 11pm and while I was already tired, I was too excited to stop there! So I stayed up till 5:30 am cutting and piecing as carefully as I could. Of course I had to do a few re-calculations, some reverse sewing. There were many tiny pieces to cut, A LOT of fussy cutting, and I hit my low point at 4 am trying to piece a ¼” half square triangle for the alley/side building roof. But when I finally crawled in bed the block was pieced. The next day I toyed with printing out a real clock face and fountain top, but decided in the end simple pale fabric looked better and I embroidered the clock face, fountain, windows, door arch, and flagpoles with the machine, then the water sprays by hand.

My husband, who did read the books and liked the story well enough but doesn’t understand my obsession with it, suggested I put a sparkly figure in the alley!

Next step is to resize to 6” block to include in my individual Twilight Quilt. I might sketch it on the computer this time to make it easier to share!

Originally posted block on TwilightMoms thread: “A Quilt for Stephenie Meyer”

Iris

Stephenie Meyer Quilt: Edward's Crystal Heart

You are the only one who has ever touched my heart. It will always be yours. –Edward Cullen, Eclipse, page 195

[Edward] pulled my left wrist away from my leg, and touched the silver bracelet for just a moment. Then he gave me my arm back.

I examined it cautiously. On the opposite side of the chain from the wolf, there now hung a brilliant heart-shaped crystal. It was cut in a million facets, so that even in the subdued light shining from the lamp, it sparkled. I inhaled a low gasp.

“It was my mother’s.” He shrugged deprecatingly. “I inherited quite a few baubles like this. I’ve given some to Esme and Alice both. So, clearly, this is not a big deal in any way.”

I smiled ruefully at his assurance.

“But I thought it was a good representation,” he continued. “It’s hard and cold.” He laughed. “And it throws rainbows in the sunlight.”

“You forgot the most important similarity,” I murmured. “It’s beautiful.”

“My heart is just as silent,” he mused. “And it, too, is yours.”

I twisted my wrist so the heart would glimmer. “Thank you. For both.” –Bella Swan and Edward Cullen, Eclipse, page 438–439

This was my second attempt at designing a paper piece pattern.  I had just purchased a bracelet that had this fabulous crystal heart. I thought it was lovely the way the facets were cut so that it looks like a star inside the heart. I wanted to recreate that look, with the light coming in from one direction so that the left side is lighter and the right side is darker but overall there is a star inside.  It did not come easily.  I started with part of a drawing of a cut diamond (1), opening it up in Photoshop, tracing each line and adding two lines to make the bottom point,  I then drew piecing lines around the perimeter. (2)  The resulting pieced heart did not make me happy. (3)  I did not like how the top and bottom rays of the star are sliced down the middle and was not happy with the plain gray fabric I used for the darkest facets.  So I started again in Photoshop and hunted down a Michael Miller Fairy Frost in Platinum to use.  The whole thing had to sparkle, even the shadows!

My second attempt was much better, but having limited experience designing PP patterns, just once before, I could not reconcile the way I had to piece the inside of the heart with how the outside was being pieced.  I'm sure Cat would look at it and know what to do, but I felt satisfied with it. I was able to piece it fine, just at the end when piecing the background at the cusp, I had to rip out the foundation paper (a), cut the extra material (b), refold the piece in half and sew on the new line to join them up (c). Maybe confusing, but it was good enough for me!

Stephenie Meyer Quilt: Bella's Bracelet

[Jacob] turned the bag upside down and shook something silver into my hand. Metal links clinked quietly against each other.

“I didn't make the bracelet,” he admitted. “Just the charm.”

Fastened to one of the links of the silver bracelet was a tiny wooden carving. I held it between my fingers to look at it closer. It was amazing the amount of detail involved in the little figurine — the miniature wolf was utterly realistic. It was even carved out of some red-brown wood that matched the color of his skin. –Bella Swan, Eclipse, page 374

[Edward] pulled my left wrist away from my leg, and touched the silver bracelet for just a moment. Then he gave me my arm back.

I examined it cautiously. On the opposite side of the chain from the wolf, there now hung a brilliant heart-shaped crystal. It was cut in a million facets, so that even in the subdued light shining from the lamp, it sparkled. I inhaled a low gasp. –Bella Swan, Eclipse, page 438

This block, called Charm Bracelet, was designed by Cat. I selected the blue for the background because it gave a nice contrast to the silver/gray of the bracelet. For anyone reading about all of the quilts, this is also the fabric of the ground on the New Moon quilt January block. I added the jump rings and embroidered by the heart.

Stephenie Meyer Quilt: La Push: First Beach

I had been to the beaches around La Push many times during my Forks summers with Charlie, so the mile-long crescent of First Beach was familiar to me. It was still breathtaking. The water was dark gray, even in the sunlight, white capped and heaving to the gray rocky shore. Islands rose out of the steel harbor waters with sheer cliff sides, reaching to uneven summits, and crowned with austere soaring firs. The beach had only a thin border of actual sand at the water's edge, after which it grew into millions of large smooth stones that looked uniformly gray from a distance, but close up were every shade a stone could be: terra-cotta, sea green, lavender, blue gray, dull gold. The tide line was strewn with huge driftwood trees, bleached bone white in the salt waves, some piled together against the edge of the forest fringe, some lying solitary, just out of reach of the waves.
–Bella Swan, Twilight, page 114

The First Beach pattern was designed by Cat and pieced by Jerri Lynn.

Stephenie Meyer Quilt: The “Other” Jacob

“Do you think you could behave yourself a little better, at least?” I asked, irritated.

“No, I don't. You decide, Bella. You can have me the way I am — bad behavior included — or not at all.”

I stared at him, frustrated. “That's mean.”

“So are you.”

–Bella Swan and Jacob Black, Eclipse, page 329

Welcome to paper piecing! This was the first paper piecing pattern I tried. It was designed by Jennifer Ofenstein and can be found at Fandom In Stitches. I don't remember how many 'practice pieces' I did, but there were quite a few. (Many only made it a few steps before going in the scrap pile!) The other quilters were a huge help as I learned. I was so excited to see the picture taking shape as I pieced. It was like putting together a puzzle! I loved the starry blue fabric and had to use it. For the wolf, I looked through and tried various fabrics to get what I pictured as 'Jacob russet.' This is one of my favorite patterns.

Breaking Dawn Quilt: At it's new home

Here are a couple of pictures of the Breaking Dawn Quilt at it's new home with Melissa. Isn't her family just adorable!

Here's what Melissa had to say:

I absolutely LOVE the Breaking Dawn quilt! It is simply amazing! Pictures and words really don't do it justice. My husband and kids are also very impressed. We are in awe of all the work that went into each and every square. The quilting itself is also breathtaking! I can't imagine how many hours of work and love went into this quilt. It is a beautiful piece of art and I will always treasure it. I've spent a bunch of time reading online about how to best care for such a special quilt and obsessing about what might be the best place for it in my home.  For now it is resting on the bed in our extra bedroom, and the kids have been banned from stepping a toe in there without my permission. ;) I ordered a quilt rack so I can display it that way as well. Thanks so much for all your hard work! You ladies are amazingly talented!

Stephenie Meyer Quilt: The Meadow

I reached the edge of the pool of light and stepped through the last fringe of ferns into the loveliest place I had ever seen. The meadow was small, perfectly round, and filled with wildflowers – violet, yellow and soft white. Somewhere nearby, I could hear the bubbling music of a stream. The sun was directly overhead, filling the circle with a haze of buttery sunshine. I walked slowly, awestruck, through the soft grass, swaying flowers, and warm, gilded air. –Bella Swan, Twilight, page 259

I miss brown.  Everything that’s supposed to be brown – tree trunks, rocks, dirt – is all covered up with squashy green stuff here. - Bella Swan, Twilight, pg 228

When we were divvying up blocks for this quilt, I knew immediately I wanted to make a cute little meadow.  Meadows covered in wildflowers in the afternoon sun are my ideal place to be.  Edward’s Meadow was my first foray into designing my own Paper Pieced Pattern.  Since I was only going to be working with a 5” square I wanted to keep it simple.  I had seen Wanda’s cute little triangle trees from her Forks Sign block, and decided that’s what I wanted mine to be.  I sketched it out on graph paper, scanned it in, then drew the lines and colored the pattern in Photoshop Elements.   I’ve been playing with Photoshop for years, but this is the first time I ever even used the drawing tool.  After lots of googling, asking the hubby (who uses Photoshop CS for work), and trial and error, I was happy with my design after a few days.  Fabric picking is always one of my favorite parts of a project.  I zeroed in on most of the fabrics right away (love that fairy frost for the stream sparkling in the sun) but the hard one was the meadow itself.  I searched all the local stores and some online, but couldn’t find something that was green with bits of violet, yellow and white.  I finally used a kid’s novelty print I’d had for years.   It’s a flannel, which I wasn’t sure I’d like, but in the end it’s cute, as I envision the meadow being.  I appliquéd a brown log (with green spots for moss) on top to fill in some of the space. 

Leap Day Giveaway Winner

Time to open presents! –Alice Cullen New Moon, page 27

Thank you to everyone who stopped by for your Leap Day Giveaway! We enjoyed our comments and are excited to announce the winner!

Congratulations to
Lisa
who said, “Oh, what a great giveaway! My husband is buying me the Breaking Dawn part 1 dvd this week. I have all the others and have read all the books. I am now a new follower too!”

Lisa, check your e-mail. We need your mailing address and we'll get your goodies shipped off to you!

Thanks again to everyone who entered!