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.