My Twilight Quilt: Alice's Porsche, Take Two

“How far is it from Florence to Volterra?”

“That depends on how fast you drive. . . . Bella?”

“Yes?”

She eyed me speculatively. “How strongly are you opposed to grand theft auto?”

A bright yellow Porsche screamed to a stop a few feet in front of where I paced, the word TURBO scrawled in silver cursive across its back. Everyone beside me on the crowded airport sidewalk stared.

“Hurry, Bella!” Alice shouted impatiently through the open passenger window.

I ran to the door and threw myself in, feeling as though I might as well be wearing a black stocking over my head.

“Sheesh, Alice,” I complained. “Could you pick a more conspicuous car to steal?”

“The important question,” she corrected, “is whether I could have stolen a faster car, and I don't think so. I got lucky.”

“I'm sure that will be very comforting at the roadblock.”

She trilled a laugh. “Trust me, Bella. If anyone sets up a roadblock, it will be behind us.” She hit the gas then, as if to prove her point. –Bella Swan and Alice Cullen, New Moon, page 439–440

My first Porsche block wasn't quite right. I'm pretty sure I didn't check the scaling before I printed the pattern, so the car came out pretty small in the completed block. And the tiny little flowers on the fabric I picked weren't so small on the tiny little Porsche. So, I did a re-make. This is the last time I'm going to re-make any blocks for this quilt, I promise. Maybe.

First, a shout-out to Iris, my enabler, who sent me the rock fabric. Twice. And a special thanks to Cat for her amazing pattern. Thanks to both of you! I wanted the car to be really spectacular, so I used Fairy Frost in Canary this time. I mean, what was I thinking before? Fairy Frost is the obvious fabric choice for a shiny yellow Porsche. I also made sure I had the scaling right before I printed, and I even enlarged it a tiny bit so that the car would fill the block a little more. The button wheels fit this car much better. And to complete the look, I did a little satin stitch embroidery for the emblem on the hood. I think this one's a keeper.

Big Day

When you loved the one who was killing you, it left you no options. How could you run, how could you fight, when doing so would hurt that beloved one? If your life was all you had to give your beloved, how could you not give it? –Bella Cullen, Breaking Dawn, page 2

Rainy Monday: Music Spot

Let the rain kiss you. Let the rain beat upon your head with silver liquid drops. Let the rain sing you a lullaby. –Langston Hughes

It is raining buckets here today.

I love rain.

I love the sound of it on the roof.

It makes my flower gardens happy.

I wonder if the Cullens will come out and play today?

Because it is such a lovely, rainy Monday , I thought I'd share my favorite song about rainy Mondays. Check out the bass player. How awesome is she!?!

I hope you enjoy your Monday, how ever it comes to you. I know I'll be enjoying mine. I have the perfect umbrella for it.

My Twilight Quilt: The Cullen's, the River & the Cottage

Edward took my hand . . . and darted through the backyard to the edge of the river. -Bella Cullen, Breaking Dawn, page 409

[Alice] dropped my arm, made two lithe bounds, and leaped over the river.

'C'mon, Bella,' she called from the other side. -Bella Cullen, Breaking Dawn, page 474

I haven't worked on my Twilight Quilt much as of late. I was a little discouraged with the floating porch on the Cullen's House. So, I've slowed down my pace a little and worked on other things. I finally decided it was time for some renovations. I added supports under the pillars, which hopefully anchor the porch. It wasn't quite as bad as I thought it would be, but who really relishes the task of unpicking anyway?

I had all the other pieces for this panel put together and so I only needed to put them all together; the Cullen's House, a bit of forest*, the river, more forest* and Bella and Edward's cottage. Click on the photo for a closer look.


This panel occupies the space for three blocks, plus the sashing in between.

The Cullen's House Pattern

*Key: 1 Paper Pieced Tree = 500 Trees in the Forks Forest

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.

My Twilight Quilt: Alice's Porsche

How strongly are you opposed to grand theft auto? –Alice Cullen, New Moon, page 439

Vampires love fast cars. From the Cullen Cars page on Stephenie Meyer's website, here is the car she envisioned Alice stealing at the airport in Italy.


And here is the Porsche that is going in my quilt.


Pattern design by Cat, this racy roadster's ready for action. I used Fog Fairy Frost for the windows on the car and the same rock fabric (thanks Iris!) for the road that I'll be using in the Clock Tower at Volterra block, which sits next to this one. I found some fun buttons that I layered to look like tires and rims. I thought the swirls in the silver buttons looked very similar to the rims on the car. And I love the silver rings around the headlight buttons, again because it looks like the actual car. I did a hand satin stitch for the emblem on the hood. I'm going to ask the quilter to put in lines of stitching to outline the doors and the small back window to complete the car.

Button information:
Headlights: La Mode Hook 1670, Style 46785
Front Tire: La Mode Hook 33, Style 2054
Front Rim: La Mode Hook 356, Style 24787
Back Tire: La Mode Hook 32, Style 2053
Back Rim: La Mode Hook 355, Style 24786

Floss for Emblem embroidery:

Red: DMC 349

Black: DMC 310

Gold: DMC 437

And here is the layout, with another block filled in. Click on the image for a closer look.


Up next, Bella's Truck.

My Twilight Quilt: The Third Layout Revisited

As I added color to my third layout, I discovered that I could add in the pictures I'd take of all the the blocks so far. It was so fun for me to see my quilt 'come to life.' (Click on the image for a closer look).


This layout wasn't complete, though. I had a 4" x 6" area that needed to be filled in the Eclipse section and wondered about the necessity of two Vegetarian Vampire Eyes blocks. I asked for suggestions from fellow TwilightMOMS and a couple of friends and came up with some changes and additions. I removed one of the Vegetarian Vampire Eyes blocks, moved the Lion and the Lamb block up, scooted Vampire Baseball and Charlie over and added a Bella's Birthday block. At the time, the Twilight Quilters Coven was in the process of creating a New Moon Quilt for charity, and I realized that the birthday party was an important part of New Moon book. In the Eclipse section, I moved the Switzerland block over to the 4" x 6" area (not knowing how that would work out ahead of time) and adding in a Battle in the Woods scene. I felt like those changes and additions made my quilt complete.


What started out as a 'snuggle-up-under-and-read' quilt has transformed into a 'add-a-room-onto-the-house-and-built-a-shrine-to-it' quilt. As the saying goes: "Go big or go home."

My Twilight Quilt: Vegetarian Vampire Eyes

I vividly remembered the flat black color of his eyes the last time he’d glared at me – the color was striking against the background of his pale skin and his auburn hair. Today, his eyes were a completely different color: a strange ocher, darker than butterscotch, but with the same golden tone. I didn’t understand how that could be. –Bella Swan, Twilight, page 46

The idea for my Vegetarian Vampire Eyes is a combination of ideas. It began as the "Junior Year" block of Heather Laddick's Mystery Quilt; two - 6" blocks representing Edward, one on either side of a block representing Jacob.


As my ideas about the quilt changed, so did the block. I took the blocks apart and changed the red squares out for a progression of colors from gold to onyx representing the color changes of the eyes of the vegetarian vampire clan, the Culllens. I also added two more 6" blocks, making it a full jewel box block, finishing at 12". Well, two 12" blocks because I am making two quilts. And since I couldn't make up my mind about the color in the center, I made one in blue and one in red.


But since my layout had changed, if only in my head for the time being, I could no longer incorporate the 12" block. And so I scaled it down to two 6" blocks, yet again, and changed out the light blue fabric. The print in the original fabric seemed to overwhelm the block. I changed to a subtle batik, which I'll be using in some other blocks in my quilts

After more refinements to the quilt layout, I eventually decided to go with only one Vegetarian Vampire Eyes block per quilt. I should mention that the color progression in the block was another idea inspired by Iris. Thanks!

My Twilight 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

My first Vampire Baseball block was 12". And home plate faced the wrong way. Go figure. I'm an 'indoors' kind of girl, except I love to garden.

Instead of unpicking, I decided to just make a new block. Well, that's not really true. I do plan to fix home plate on my first block, if that block is ever needed. I had been formulating plans for a new layout on my quilt with all the blocks being 6" with 1" of sashing in between. I definitely wanted to include a Vampire Baseball block. It is one of my favorite scenes in the book and my favorite scene in the movie. So I drafted out a new pattern at 6" and made the block again:

The green fabric of the infield is one I will be using here and there in my quilt, as is the off-white on the bases and pitcher's mound. The kind of 'foresty' fabric of the outfield is from my fellow TwilightMOM, Wanda, and I hope to use it in a couple of other spots in my quilt. The bat came from a pack of sports themed buttons from JoAnn's and the ball is from a Streamline Set of buttons, K2155.

My Twilight Quilt: A Change of Plans

Four sections into my Twilight quilt, the designer had to put a hold on posting her directions due to personal reasons. By then a little group of TwilghtMOMs who were following her patterns had formed. We started a thread where we could talk about our quilts as we worked, show each other pictures, encourage each other, and talk about Twilight together. When the patterns stopped coming, we began to talk about ideas to finish off our quilts since none of us had ever seen the complete design.

I wanted to make a design to complete the four sections I had finished of the Mystery Quilt Heather started. I'd never seen her finished layout and wanted to keep my quilt traditional piecing. I intended for it to be a lap quilt for reading and I really wanted to finish it. One of the first changes I made was to the 'Edward' blocks. I wanted to use a full jewel box block, instead of just a half. I also wanted the diagonal blocks to represent the progression of eye color from gold to black and back again. So I went from these two 6" blocks:


to one 12" block. I couldn't decide if I wanted red or blue in the center, so since I was making two quilts, I did one of each.:


Next I decided to add a 12" Vampire Baseball block. After showing some friends my block, I was informed that home plate faces the other way. "Reverse Sewing" required.

Then I decided to see if I could work out a pattern to finish off the tops of those giant tree trunks.

As the trunks were needle-turn appliqué and I wanted to finish them off with traditional piecing, I didn't get very far and completely abandoned that effort.

Because I was floundering around trying to make a quilt without a design, I decided to draw up a layout of the blocks I had and the blocks I wanted to add. I based my design on that of Iris, another member of our group over at TwilightMOMS (Click on the image for a larger view).


I got to work, but I was already thinking about blocks that I'd left out, making notes on my layout of what I wanted to add. There are so many important and exciting parts to the books that I didn't want to leave anything out.

My Twilight Quilt: How It All Began

I'm a closet Twilight fan. But I think I just 'outed' myself. The Twilight books are books that some people just love and some people just hate. Some might argue that they are campy and adolescent and that they don't adhere to Vampire Cannon. But I find them incredibly romantic and I'm not into vampires anyway. Personally, I love that Stephenie Meyer made her own rules and created her own universe. Who cares if the vampires don't have fangs and can come out during the day?

I started reading Twilight on September 16, 2008. My world was turned completely upside down and I had to rethink my life. I scoured the web for anything Twilight related and eventually ended up at TwilightMOMS. I joined the forums and made friends. That's where I met Heather Laddick, Zeppelin Threads Quilt shop owner. She was thinking of making a Twilight quilt and sharing the patterns 'mystery style.' I encouraged her to go ahead with her plans. In January of 2009 she started giving out instructions for her quilt and I followed along. She'd divided her quilt into six sections, revealing them one section at a time every two weeks.

So, I selected my fabrics and began work. As I got working on things, I realized that I had enough fabric for two quilts and I decided that I was going to make one for myself and one for Stephenie Meyer.

The first section, "Freshman Year" was a representation of the places Bella frequented in the books; (moving clockwise) Charlie's House, Jacob's House, The Cullen's House and Bella and Edward's Cottage. The chimneys made a Swiss Flag in the center of the block,representing Bella's 'neutral status' and declaration I am a neutral country. I am Switzerland. I refuse to be affected by territorial disputes between mythical creatures.

Section two, or "Sophomore Year" was a representation of the forest in and around Forks. Since none of us had seen the final design of the quilt, we were all wondering how these amazing tree trunks were going to be finished off.


"Junior Year" was a lot of fun. It was a representation of Edward and Jacob. The 'Edward' blocks sat on either side of 'Jacob.'


"Senior Year" was the first section that I was really not excited about. It was a progression of the moon phases from New Moon to Full Moon. It was clever, but it seemed a 'space filler' to me.

After Senior Year, there was a huge pause in the proceedings. Heather had some unforeseen personal issues arise, and so I began to dabble around with my own designs. Eventually, instructions for the last two sections of the quilt, "Prom" and "Graduation," were posted, but by then I had decided to go a different direction with my quilt.