My Twilight Quilt: Switzerland

I am a neutral country. I am Switzerland. I refuse to be affected by territorial disputes between mythical creatures. –Bella Swan, Eclipse, page 143

Work on the New Moon Charity Quilt and Christmas projects hadn't left me much time to work on my Twilight quilt. I'd been dying to make this block for over a month and was so glad to finally get to it. This is Cat's design accented with machine embroidery by Jerri Lynn. Thank you so much, both of you! I love that everyone is so willing to share talents and ideas. Cat's shield design adds an awesome amount of visual interest. She went to Switzerland on her honeymoon and said that shields were displayed far more often than flags. The quilt block is designed to be a square. In working out some of the finer points of my layout I'd moved the Switzerland block from a 6" square to a 4" x 6" rectangle, planning to stretch the design and make it taller than it is wide, in favor of giving the larger space to a scene depicting the battle in the woods between Victoria and Edward in Eclipse. But one morning I came up with a better idea. I'd reduce Cat's block from 5" to 4" and border it with a quote from the book -- I am Switzerland. It was the perfect solution. The only problem was finding the time to do it.

The time finally came last week. I stayed up late one night to work on this block and just really enjoyed doing a non-deadlined, just-for-fun, just-for-me project. The red is left-over from the Stephenie Meyer quilt -- almost the last little bit of it. I had a couple of strips of bias cut left from the binding, which I recut so I could use it on the grain (the less bias pulling the better, right?) so it took me forever. Or maybe I'm just slow. In any case here is the I Am Switzerland block. I really like the way it fits into the quilt.

As my layout has evolved and the patterns for the blocks I'm including moved from traditional piecing to the very time consuming process of paper piecing, I've come to realize that no one will ever snuggle up under this quilt. It is meant to be displayed. Did I mention that I'm making two of this quilt? In the beginning one quilt was for me and one quilt was going to be a gift for Stephenie Meyer. But since the Twilight Quilter's Coven made Piece, Love, Twilight, a quilt for Stephenie Meyer as a group and I coordinated that, I decided not to give the second quilt to her. I'm not sure what the second quilt is for, but since I started two, I have to finish two (yes, I know that's a little mental).

My quilt started out being called the Twilight Mystery Quilt, mostly because I was following a set of instructions which were being given out every two weeks 'mystery style.' And that name was fitting for a while, because even though I worked on it, borrowing and coming up with my own ideas to represent the books, it was still a mystery as to how it would come out. But I think I have all the pieces in place now, and so taking all that into consideration, I think it only fitting that my quilt be called More Than A Little Obsessed.