Twilight Saga Charity Quilt: 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 Clock Tower at Volterra
Designed by Iris and adapted and pieced by Joyce as part of our Give-to-Win Twilight Saga Charity Quilt.

From Joyce:
I started with Iris’ Clock Tower block from New Moon, then watched the DVD a number of times. I decided to make this block similar to hers, but closer. I used the crackle white and brown fabric for the building. The base of the fountain is also the crackle fabric. , I used a blue striated with white fabric to fill the fountain, which looked like water to me. I originally did the fountain statue in the same crackle fabric, but it blended too much with the building, so I remade it in a dark red. I covered it with a sparkly organdy ribbon to make it look like water was falling from the fountain. I used a brighter red for the flags all over the building, and the black we used for most of the quilt in the windows to give some depth. The clock itself is white fabric, and I embroidered the hands so it was getting close to noon. I used a satin stitch to define edges and add some detail. All we need now is for Edward to appear in the doorway!

For every $5 donation to George Mark Children's House, you get one chance to win this quilt. Visit the Twilight Saga Quilt Page for more details.

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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

Breaking Dawn Charity Quilt: Aro's Gift

The present itself was not overtly threatening. Extravagant, yes, almost frightening in that very extravagance. The threat was in the parting line of Aro's congratulatory note, written in black ink on a square of heavy, plain white paper in Aro's own hand:

I so look forward to seeing the new Mrs. Cullen in person.

The gift was presented in an ornately carved, ancient wooden box inlaid with gold and mother-of-pearl, ornamented with a rainbow of gemstones. Alice said the box itself was a priceless treasure, that it would have outshone just about any piece of jewelry besides the one inside it.

The necklace was simple—gold woven into a thick rope of chain, almost scaled, like a smooth snake that would curl close around the throat. One jewel hung suspended from the rope: a white diamond the size of a golf ball.
–Bella Cullen, Breaking Dawn, page 531-532

From the beginning of signing up for this block I didn't really ‘feel’ it, ya know? I opted to take this block because someone needed to do it and I had gotten the block I really wanted and knew exactly how I was going to do that one. This one did not come so naturally. I did know that I was going to a jewel, I even knew what I was going to use for it. I have this prism that hangs on my studio door and in the afternoon it shines rainbows on my cutting table. As much as I would miss it, I just

thought it looked like the jewel that was described in the book. Anyway, I put it off and thought and put it off. Then the deadline was getting close so I had to bite the bullet and just make the thing.

I looked around for a paper-pieced pattern for the box but just couldn't find one. My idea was to make a box and put a velvet lining on the ‘inside’ and then attach the prism in the middle. Well, I just couldn't find a pattern I wanted so that put me off for a few more weeks because I felt stumped again. So I decided that I would appliqué a box instead and then keep my idea of adding the ‘jewel.’ I don't know why by I kept coming up with this sort of engagement ring box in my head so that is what I tried to make. I used a black velvet with a gold sort of hinge on a pink satin background, I thought the pink satin would represent the wedding part of the gift. Well, it ended up looking like a morbid clam. It was hideous! I showed it to my hubby and said ‘what does this look like to you?’ If he had just been able to identify it as a jewelry box, I might have kept it. He just stared at it like a dog does when you whistle at it and said ‘I have no idea.’ I immediately threw it in the trash and went to bed. The next morning I decided to start over. I grabbed my copy of the book and found the description of the box and decided to go more literally with the design. I saw an old sort of pirates chest type design with jewels embedded in the wood. Since I can't draw to save my life, I started googling clip art for pirate's chests and found a few that I liked and took different elements from them and put them together to make a pattern. I used some fabric that was the border print for the New Moon quilt for the wood grain and some other random browns.

Then I ran off to the craft store to try and find something to accent it with to give it that sort of gilded gold feel. I found the ribbon and scored double with these ‘jewels’ on a string for the trim too. So I get the box made, and go to add the prisim and low and behold, the one thing I was sure about just didn't work. So it was back to the craft store to find something that would. I added the chain and the note and called it good.

I know that was a long winded story, thanks for hanging with me for it.

Breaking Dawn Charity Quilt: Bella's Shield

I saw Jane smile as Edward crossed the midpoiunt in the distance between us, when he was closer to them than he was to us.

That smug little smile did it. My fury peaked, higher even than the raging bloodlust I'd felt the moment the wolves had committed to this doomed fight. I could taste madness on my tongue—I felt it flow through me like a tidal wave of pure power. My muscles tightened, and I acted automatically. I threw my shield with all the force in my mind, flung it across the impossible expanse of the field—ten times my best distance—like a javelin. My breath rushed out in a huff with the exertion.

The shield blew out from me in a bubble of sheer energy, a mushroom cloud of liquid steel. It pulsed like a living thing—I could feel it, from the apex to the edges.

There was no recoil to the elastic fabric now; in that instant of raw force, I saw that the backlash I'd felt before was of my own making—I had been clinging to that invisible part of me in self-defense, subconsciously unwilling to let it got. Now I set it free, and my shield exploded a good fifty yards out from me effortlessly, taking only a fraction of my concentration. I could feel it flex like just another muscle, obedient to my will. I pushed it, shaped it to a long, pointed oval. Everything underneath the flexible iron shield was suddenly a part of me—I could feel the life force of everything it covered like points of bright heat, dazzling sparks of light surrounding me. I thrust the shield forward the length of the clearing, and exhaled in relief when I felt Edward's brilliant light within my protection. I held there, contracting this new muscle so that it closely surrounded Edward, a thin but unbreakable sheet between his body and our enemies.
–Bella Cullen, Breaking Dawn, page 690-691

Pattern by Cat, design and piecing by Iris

I'll start off right off the bat saying that I had a hard time translating my idea for Bella's Shield into a fabric block. As soon as I saw that topic on our brainstorm list, I knew I wanted to use Cat's Swiss Shield pattern (without the cross in the middle) and I wanted to use an organza overlay on the shield with bright dots underneath to show the "bright points of light" that represented her friends and family under the shield.

Several obstacles arose.

First, finding the right fabric. I had a piece of the Kaufman Stargazers in Midnight which had some elements I thought would be really good: a swirl pattern to mimic her description of Alec's numbing "gift" hitting her shield; and golden starbursts that fit the "bright points of light" in her description. But since the confrontation is during a snowy day, I wanted something in whites/grays or blues. It took a couple hours of googles but I finally found the Stargazers fabric in Sky, which fit my idea.

I went to print out the pattern, enlarged, and my brain didn't work right and I printed it a bit bigger than I really would have liked. I didn't realize this until after I pieced it. So as a result you can't even see the cool snowflake pattern on the top half of the block. I tried out the organza idea, but even using the really thin printable sheets, you lost the whole pattern with the starbursts & swirls.

I wanted to show "the confrontation", with her friends and family in the shield portion and the Volturi & Nomads around them, and was originally thinking about using fabric markers or embroidery. Angie made a great suggestion to use beads, which I thought would add interest to an otherwise simple block. I used topaz colored ones for her family, placing them mostly in 2's (all the mates) with a grouping at the front to show Bella, Edward, Carlisle and Renesmee. Yeah, I know she has brown eyes, but I got some matte brown beads (which turned out to be brownish/purple) for the wolves. So I made a unified line of those in back of the main Cullen group and had one in front for Jacob. I added a few red ones in the shield for the other Covens. The Volturi "enemies" are lined up outside, with a few Nomad couples behind them. I clustered 3 reds together in the front for Aro, Caius, Marcus, but also added a fourth bead for Renata, and a topaz bead for Katrina. ;)

So, if I had absolute unlimited time, like let's say I was a vampire that didn't need to sleep, or I was just that OCD, I would probably re-make this block just to size down the shield and show more background. However, because I have a wonderfully busy life outside of Twilight, and I still think it came out neat, and I had alot of fun with the beads, it is what it is.

Eclipse Charity Quilt: The Volturi

The Volturi by Mel

We don't make exceptions. And we don't give second chances. It's bad for our reputation. -Jane, Eclipse, page 578

This block gave me cold sweats and waking nightmares! It was a very important part of the book for me, and being a Volturi fan, I wanted to get this just right. I had the idea of having the Volturi guard, with Jane at the head, holding skulls. The skulls are meant to represent the fact that to the Volturi, Bella's life is going to be over one way or the other. It was then suggested that I put a forest background, to make it fuller. The Forest block is a design by Cat, and was paper pieced. I used what I hope looks like a stormy sky fabric because that's how I remember the scene form the book. The two guard Volturi in the back are holding skulls, which are actually buttons. The Volturi are appliquéd. In the front, you can see Jane, engulfed in fire to represent her very special Pain talent. Also, her cloak was made out of a black fabric with some flowers in it, as when I was watching the special features for New Moon, I realized they used a flowered fabric for her cloak. I thought it would be cool to use this in my representation. If you have been following our blog, you will most probably notice that the Volturi look practically the same as they did in my last block, for the New Moon quilt. I thought why mess with something that worked well for me??? So I used Heat 'N Bond and zigzag stitched my way through the Volturi! However, I added a little twist this time: red French Knot eyes. I hope this lives up to expectations! (I'm still hyperventilating at the thought of making this block...which I volunteered for!!!)

-Mel

New Moon Quilt: The Volturi

The Volturi by Mel


This started out being only Jane. We figured it would be more representative to have all the Volturi! This block is my interpretation of the volturi, full-fledged. It started out as a hand drawing I made, and I did my best to transform it into fabric art. The Volturi are surrounded by smoke, cloaked in black. In the back, the clock is about the strike noon. The red sky represents their power and also the threat of death the Volturi represent. I used applique and reverse applique for everything. I used a satin stitch to embellish the smoke, and to embellish the clock tower. The Volturi were appliqued, and I also used a blanket stitch, again for embellishment.

New Moon Quilt: La Tua Cantante

La Tua Cantante by Mel


I got inspired by Bella's blood singing to Edward. I thought that it was a really beautiful metaphor. So that's exactly what I made: music! Since I play piano, this image is the first thing that popped into my head when I joined the group! I used paper piecing to form the background, and the key and notes were done using Heat Bond for applique. The red is supposed to represent Bella's blood. We added a quote around the block (done by JerriLynn) to make it clear what the block is supposed to represent.