Monday, February 8, 2010

My Twilight Quilt: The Cullen's House

I realized, as he drove my truck out of the main part of town, that I had no idea where he lived. We passed over the bridge at the Calawah River, the road winding northward, the houses flashing past us growing farther apart, getting bigger. And then we were past the other houses altogether, driving through misty forest. I was trying to decide whether to ask or be patient, when he turned abruptly onto an unpaved road. It was unmarked, barely visible among the ferns. The forest encroached on both sides, leaving the road ahead only discernible for a few meters as it twisted, serpentlike, around the ancient trees.

An then, after a few miles, there was some thinning of the woods, and we were suddenly in a small meadow, or was it actually a lawn? The gloom of the forest didn't relent, though, for there were six primordial cedars that shaded an entire acre with their vast sweep of branches. The trees held their protecting shadow right up to the walls of the house that rose among them, making obsolete the deep porch that wrapped around the first story.

I don't know what I had expected, but it definitely wasn't this. The house was timeless, graceful, and probably a hundred years old. It was painted a soft, faded white, three stories tall, rectangular and well proportioned. The windows and doors were either part of the original structure or a perfect restoration. ... I could hear the river close by, hidden in the obscurity of the forest.
-Bella Swan, Twilight, pages 320-321

This is my representation of The Cullen's House. I started with a printout of a pattern from the EQ5 Software, which I scanned and then altered to fit. I wanted the area of the porch around the door to look like it extended forward just a bit farther than the rest of the porch, and it looked OK on paper, but the execution in fabric doesn't look like it should. I'm not sure how to fix it. I'll have to think on it. As usual, I've used Fairy Frost in this block; Fog for the windows.


My initial reaction was to leave the house as it was, floating porch and all. But deep down, I knew I had to fix it. I stopped work on my Twilight quilt and let the house simmer in the back of my mind. I worked a bit on Jacob's house and did a few projects, but after three weeks, I finally realized that I had to fix the house before any more progress could be made on the quilt. I decided to add some porch supports, and that seems to have fixed the problem.


The Cullen's House Pattern

This house is part of a panel that will go across the bottom of the quilt and will include a bit of the Forks Forest, the river and Bella & Edward's Cottage. The individual pieces for this section are all finished, and have been waiting to be put together for me to fix the house.

No comments: