New Moon Quilt: Cliff Diving

Cliff Diving by Angie


This is my cliff diving block. I felt this was a part of the story that had to be represented and it turns the tide of the story.

I used alot of random fabrics from my stash and yes of course some fairy frost (the blue water). Just love the stuff! :)

I know some people don't quite understand this block, but that is part of quilting, it is art and there for subjective to the artists vision...I thought about doing Bella more haphazard and sprawled out but once we started to draw it, this is how she came out. I wanted to capture the look of her falling but that it was still and intentional leap, not like she tripped. I also tried to capture the storm clouds moving in. I didn't want the whole background to be stormy but more like it was off in the distance and threating. That was what was making the water rough so I used organza fabric showing waves splashing against the rocks. Once it was all done, I still felt like there was an element missing and added the orange (Victoria, again off in the distance) as something abstract and not noticable unless you really knew the story.

New Moon Quilt: Months Passing Without Notice

Months Passing Without Notice by Joyce
The months in the book just broke my heart. I thought it was so powerful to just have them listed as time passed. These are like a 'flip calendar.' If you look closely, hopefully you will see the trees are designed to symbolize hands reaching toward each other, but just not able to connect.

October

November

December

In case you are wondering about the green, I had 'snowy' fabric picked out, but looked at pictures of a Christmas celebration and parade in Forks. It was green (just like in the books), so I had to go with that. By December, the leaves should have been mostly gone, anyway.

January

In January, Bella 'wakes up'. There is hope, although she is still heartbroken. The 'ground' material actually has a little bit of sparkle in it.

New Moon Quilt: Dangerous Meadow

The Dangerous Meadow by Joyce


here is the top of the meadow block. I used Susan C. Druding's Fall Scene free applique block, a picture, and the nordic pine at forestquilting.com as inspiration.

I had originally planned to have the block kind of drab and dreary 'just coming into spring' beiges, but, like I said on the calendar post, Forks is GREEN. (I know the books say that all the time, but it really seems to be true the whole year.)

In Twilight, the meadow is a magical place where Edward and Bella end up declaring their love for each other. In New Moon, Bella is searching for the meadow to recapture that magic, but finds the opposite. Not only is the magic gone, but danger has arrived. I wanted the feel to be somewhat cold and stark. The trees are bare, and there is not a clear way out. (Actually, I thought I was done, but there was a clear path of escape, so I added more trees! )

The bare trees were cut out and appliqued. I did use a bonding like Steam a Seam, but I've had it so long, it is no longer in a package, so I don't know the name. It was really easy, though - just cut to size, place, and iron.

The Pine Trees were based on the Nordic pine. Instead of using their pattern directly, I just drew and cut out the trees in the sizes needed, then made the trees by paper piecing the triangles and trimming. I folded the edges under and sewed onto the block. I made the trunks separately. I actually ended up with more trees of both kinds than I could use.

Take a look at it with the bottom attached. I think it looks amazing!

New Moon Quilt: Bella's Broken and Mended Heart

Bella's Broken and Mended Heart by Joyce


I used the Broken Heart design on sewhooked.com and the Scrappy Heart from sewquilty.com (Feb 2003 block) as inspiration. The brown ribbon symbolizes Jacob holding Bella together, but it takes Edward's love (the white ribbons) to heal her heart.

New Moon Quilt: The Movies

The Movies by Elizabeth


This little movie theater was such fun to put together. The black swirl and star fabric I used as the sky came from Joyce. She sent it to me when we were trying to find a match to the black fabric we used in the Stephenie Meyer quilt for the quilt back. I love the marquee on top of the building and wanted it to look like a neon sign. I used Fairy Frost fabric, a favorite of mine. The colors are (from outside to center) Lipstick, Lily Pad, Violet and the center post is glow-in-the-dark Fairy Frost. I looks so cool; I wish I could show a picture of it. I also used Banana Fairy Frost for the doors and ticket window. I did hand embroidery for the "CINEMA," "TICKETS," the door handles and the little ticket window 'talk' and 'pay' places.

Here are close-ups of the posters:


I Googled images for the posters. I know that Tomorrow & Forever is a romantic comedy, but I have this image of a windswept embrace in my head and this picture fit so well. I suppose that is one reason why books are better than movies -- we all have our own perceptions. I used Microsoft Paint and PictureProject programs to combine the frame with lights with the pictures and add in the movie titles and "Now Showing." I printed them out on printable fabric sheets and then treated them so that they are washable.

This block was a lot of fun to put together. It is paper piecing, so it took me about 4 hours (you're probably thinking, "boy she's slow!" I'm thinking the same thing!). I had a second piece of glow-in-the-dark Fairy Frost across the top of the building but it made it look like the top didn't belong to the bottom. I took it apart and put in a new section with bricks and brown trim to bring the top and bottom two pieces together. Embroidery took me about 4 hours (yes, I'm really slow!).

New Moon Quilt: Bella and Jacob's Motorcycles

Bella and Jacob's motorcycles by Elizabeth


You can't have New Moon without Bella and Jacob's Motorcycles. I used the bikes Stephenie Meyer posted in the Cullen Cars section of her website; a Harley Sprint for Jacob and a Honda for Bella. I printed the images out and then used a light table to trace them directly onto my block layout pattern. I used that pattern to create the individual pieces used in each motorcycle. I think I spent about 35 hours on this one little block. Each of the pieces was traced, cut out, fused into place and then hand stitched to keep them secure. A huge amount of work, but I like the end result. I'm going to be duplicating this block for my own Twilight Quilt; something to keep me busy during the long winter months.

The red fabric in Bella's Motorcycle is the same fabric I used for the borders in the Stephenie Meyer quilt. The pine needles, meant to be bracken on the forest floor, came from Wanda when I asked if she'd send me a bit of fabric she used in her Vampire Baseball block for Stephenie's quilt. She was sweet and sent along a few other nice green foresty fabrics. I added a hand-embroidered quote to this block. I used Bella's font for the quote, "Only a teenage boy would agree to this." I don't think that it worked out as well as it did on Jacob's Sun. I went with a lighter thread, which doesn't show as much as the slightly-darker-than-the-sun yellow thread I used on Jacob's block. The stitches are so small it would have been almost impossible to take them out and had I even had the desire to try it, I was crunched for time, finishing this at the last second.

New Moon Quilt: The Wolf Pack

The Wolf Pack by Elizabeth
Jacob (russet), Paul (dark silver), Sam (black), Embry (gray w/spots), Jared (medium brown)


This block is part of a larger block, The Dangerous Meadow. Originally we had planned to put most of the wolves in the sashing around the meadow. But when we drew up the new layout, we decided to keep all the elements inside the blocks. Joyce and I combined efforts to put this block together and you'll get to see her part of the block soon. I used Cat's Paw Print pattern reduced to 43%. Each paw is roughly 1-5/8" x 1-3/4". The claws are hand-done with a satin stitch and embroidery floss. I spent about 16 or 17 hours putting them together. I love the way the subtle, end-of-winter yellow-green background sets off the colors of the wolf paws. I put the wolves in an off-set V formation, as described in the book. As I read the part where they enter the meadow, I wrote it down as I pictured it in my head. Jacob is kind of hanging back, looking at Bella. I also did left and right pawed wolves, depending on which side of the formation they were in. My family says I'm a little obsessed.

New Moon Quilt: The Proposal

The Proposal by Elizabeth

We 'talked' quite a bit on how Edward's marriage proposal should be represented. It is a difficult proposition to represent in fabric. Angie shared this pattern with me and I thought it worked out well. This block is meant to represent Edward offering his (anatomical) sparkly diamond heart to Bella (not to be confused with the actual sparkly diamond heart he gives her for her charm bracelet in Eclipse). The red rose is a symbol of love. I also went with red, white and black because a lot of this quilt is earthy and Jacoby, but Edward is still there. I hope this block does not disappoint.

I used the black swirl fabric that I used in the Stephenie Meyer Twilight Quilt for the background (sorry you can't see it in the block, it is hard to get a good photograph of it), our favorite iridescent sparkle fabric for the heart, Red Fairy Frost for the rose and a really ugly green marble print that worked out perfectly for the stem and leaves of the flower. I think that is my favorite part.

New Moon Quilt: Jacob's Sun

Jacob's Sun by Elizabeth



Jacob's Sun was a fun block to make. I wanted it to be a representation of the healing Bella was able to do with Jacob. I drew out a fun, scrappy sun and added in the soda cans. I don't think there was a specific reference to what kind of warm soda Jacob brought to the garage, but I pictured root beer or a Coke. I went with a generic label on the red can (red coordinated really well with the yellow and blue). This block is all needle turn applique' with embroidery. It was a lot of fun to do. I patched together some different yellows for the sun, which was really fun (I'm going to make a crazy quilt with scraps some time). I embroidered "like an earthbound sun" in Bella's font (as close as I could get to it with a needle and thread) on the edge of the sun. I wanted it to be very subtle, so I used yellow floss. I hope it works. Hmm, what else? I wanted the background to look a little sunny because everything except Jacob is "cloudy" in New Moon.

New Moon Movie Premier Charity Quilt: Making Lemonade

Sometimes life hands you lemons. You have two choices; let them sour your attitude or make lemonade. Over the past two weeks we've had to do quite a bit of re-arranging on our quilt. The movie premier is quickly approaching and time is an issue, but I think we've made lemonade of our situation. Here is our new lay-out, a design created by everyone in our group.

Over the next few days, we hope to update you on the changes we've made to our quilt. We're proud of what we've done as a team and hope that our efforts will bring a nice donation for Alex's Lemonade Stand.