Sunday, January 24, 2010

My Twilight 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

Bella's truck is an essential element of the story, almost a character in it. From the Cullen Cars section on Stephenie Meyer's web-site, a 1953 Chevy truck:

And the truck that goes in my quilt:

The Red Truck pattern is another of Cat'samazing designs. I counted, and if I didn't miss anything, my quilt uses 13 of her designs, two of them specifically made for my quilt (THANKS CAT!). I'm ever grateful for her willingness to share.

Now a bit about the fabrics: Wanda sent me the darker red on the fenders and the grey and black stripe in the grill. The main red and the green are Moda Marbles and the grey sky is what I hope to use throughout my quilt for the sky in Forks, but I'm worried I might run out. I bought everything the store had and have looked for more on-line with no luck. When I started out with Bella's Truck, I was confident that I would have plenty to finish. But I opened my piece up and it is only about 20" x 30", plus a few scraps. I used it as the background for the rows of trees on top and bottom and the tall tree in the bottom left. I have a background for the Motorcycles block cut out and want to use it as the sky for Charlie's house, Jacob's house, The Cullen's house, Bella & Edward's cottage and the section between those last two houses. I would also like to use it for Cliff Diving and the Battle in the Woods scene, but I might have to make due with something else. I'm crossing my fingers and I'm going to have to look on-line again, I guess. The front bumper is ironing board cover fabric I bought off the bolt at JoAnn's. The instructions said not to wash it, but I put a Fat Quarter in the wash to see what would happen. Off the bolt, it is shiny silver. When washed, it gets little veins in it and has a hint of shimmer. I decided that I liked the texture of the washed best, so I washed my whole stash. And, I couldn't do a block without Fairy Frost, so I used Fog for the windows to give it a sort of reflective look.

Buttons:
Headlights: La Mode Hook 1524, Style 5102
Front Tire: La Mode Hook 27, Style 2046
Back Tire: La Mode Hook 26, Style 2045

I think I'm past the half-way mark on getting my blocks together. That is exciting. I've been turning over ideas for Charlie's house. That is going to be next. I altered my pattern for his house and got the pattern ready for a couple of great trees to go next to it, but can't find a great match for fabrics for the house. I'm hung up on the Cullen's house being white and Charlie's movie house also being white. The books don't say what color Charlie's house is, so I don't know which way to go.

4 comments:

Kerri said...

Will your quilt be auctioned off when you're finished? It'll be worth a fortune! What a work of art.

Elizabeth said...

I'm making two quilts, twins. One is for me to keep and I haven't decided what to do with the second quilt yet. It started out as a gift for Stephenie Meyer, but the Twilight Quilters Coven made a quilt for her as a group and I participated in that, so that kind of preempted my quilt for her.

Jennifer Lovell said...

actually, she's just going to give it to me as payment for being her best friend ;). Right?

Elizabeth said...

I do pay my friends well ;).