Twin Peaks- In Quilt Form

My brother in law loves the television show Twin Peaks. The release of every new episode sparked conversation on what was happening and what it really meant.  I won’t go super fan girl on the show, but I do enjoy the show. It is weird, interesting and it is the kind of show that makes a person think. It wouldn’t be everyone’s cup of tea. This is when I had a moment of inspiration.  

I strive to give unique gifts that reflect thoughtfulness during the holidays and lately I have been getting into sewing projects more and more.  I decided to combine his love for Twin Peaks with my love for textile manipulation. I decided to make a Twin Peaks quilt.  

One of the hardest parts of any quilting project outside of creating a pattern is choosing the fabric. You get a mental picture in your head as to what you want the fabric to be, and then the challenge to make it work. I decided to break the quilt up into two themes. One theme being the town of Twin Peaks and the second section the Black Lodge.  

For anyone that has watched the show, they know that the Black Lodge is in the center of Twin Peaks. I decided to have the Black Lodge theme section capped on the ends with the Twin Peaks themed sections to represent this. 

For the Twin Peaks section I tried to take into account the whimsy of some of the beloved characters and running themes through out the show, without drowning in small the details.  The final fabric choices for Twin Peaks ended up being: Pinecones, Fish, Donuts, Cherry Pie Filling, Coffee.  I created a pattern of twin triangles to mimic twin mountain peeks using the the Pinecones and filled in the area around it with the remaining details. As a special nod to my brother in laws favorite lines, I made a point to surround the fish with coffee.  

Pete Martell: Fellas, don't drink that coffee! You'd never guess. There was a fish... in the percolator! Sorry...

The Black Lodge themed section was the harder of the two sections to create.  The initial idea was easy, create the black lodge emblem.  The application was anything but easy.  I knew that I wanted to use black and white chevron and red velvet, but the other fabric was harder to define.  I eventually decided on Stars,  Smoke, Red Oil Slick and Crushed Darkness to go with the chevron and red velvet.  That way different aspects of the Black Lodge could be represented. 

Giant: The owls are not what they seem.

I had a lot of fun coming up with the concept for the quilt and searching for fabric.  The process sparked lots of conversations between my husband and I.  Without his contributions and acting as a sounding board, this might be a totally different quilt.  One of the joys about this project is that it inspired other themed quilts that I can’t wait to start working on and. Learned a lot in the process.