Saturday, January 9, 2010

My Twilight Quilt: The Forks Forest

The trail wound deeper and deeper into the forest, mostly east as far as I could tell. It 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 forest* in and around Forks is a character in the books. The Mystery Quilt instructions had us make two tall trees for our quilt, but I just couldn't find a way to finish out these tall trunks to my satisfaction, so I scrapped them.


I replaced them, instead, with two long rows of forest* from the Nature's Sampler pattern by J. Jarger (a terrific find by Iris). The trees are raw edge applique. I'm finishing them by hand with a whip stich.

Here is the top row. I will also be adding the famous "The City of Forks Welcomes You" sign towards the right side. Click on the image for a larger view.


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. -Bella Swan, Twilight, page 321

This tall tree has so much visual interest it just had to be included. It did not start out as such, but it is has become one of the giant cedar trees* that surrounds the Cullen's house. The trunk is made from the fabric that was in one of the huge trunks from the original mystery quilt and extends down into the bottom row of trees, and it really does match up (photo editing makes it a little off). The cedar tree is partially finished (I'll get to the rest soon, but had to show it off) with a heavy machine blanket stitch to add more texture to the tree.


Click on the images for a larger view.

*Key: 1 Paper Pieced Tree = 500 Trees in the Forks Forest
1 Raw-Edge Appliqué Tree = 150 Trees in the Forks Forest

1 Raw-Edge Giant Cedar Tree = 6 Giant Cedar Trees around the Cullen's House

No comments: