Some "Quilty Things" From Hawaii

Aloha!  I am back from a fabulous vacation trip to the big island of Hawaii.    We had the laptop, but the hotel did not offer free Wi-Fi.  So, we took hundreds of photographs and just took ten days off from Internet and e-mail.  I'll start catching up today with some quilt-related pictures.

We arrived at the Waikoloa Village Hilton in Kona at night after about nineteen hours of travel.  The resort is enormous, encompassing over sixty acres.  After we checked in, we took a tram ride to our room in the Palace Tower.  As tired and jet-lagged as I was, I couldn't help but notice THIS at the first tram stop at the convention center.

Of course, I did not take the picture until later, and the glare from the glass case obstructs some of the view.  This is a beautiful example of Hawaiian applique.  That style generally uses only one or two fabrics, and are silhouettes cut in circular patterns in four or eight sections.  Think of cutting paper snowflakes like we did in elementary school.

This particular quilt won a major award...and look at the ribbon!  It looks like a flower lei!



The first night that we went to a shopping center near the resort, I stumbled across the delightful Hawaiian Quilt Collection. 

This shop features quilts, bags, tableware, and lots of other items celebrating Hawaiian textiles and designs.  What caught my eye was this fabulous quilt on the wall.  It features the Hawaiian applique in an intricate four-section design.

They were getting ready to close, but the lady working in the shop said that it took two years to make.  She said the owner of the shop designed the quilt, and hired women to do the sewing.

Here are more quilts adorning a fabulous carved wooden four-poster bed.

I was drawn to this collection of soft-sculpture dolls in Hawaiian dress.

And look at the attractive wall of handbags to choose from!

This shop also sells patterns and kits for some of the Hawaiian applique designs.

Back to the resort...I mentioned the glorious quilt on display in front of the convention center.  Actually, there is a "Museum Walk" along a covered promenade from one end to the other.  If you don't want to ride the tram

or one of the wooden boats that run on a track through a man-made canal

to your destination, you can hoof it on the walkway and enjoy a multi-cultural display of sculpture, pottery, paintings, marionettes, and textiles on your way.

There were several examples of Asian tapestries that I admired.  There was no accompanying signage to explain the origin of these pieces.  Most of them appeared to be black and beige or gold, with trapunto stuffing and a staggering amount of beading and gold thread work.

Here is a detail of one piece. Look at all the pearls!

This detail shows how the stuffed trapunto elements make the piece three-dimensional.

There is more sculpture generously sprinkled throughout the resort. 

This towering fountain is in the lobby of our building in the resort.

As is this lovely objet d'arte.

Of course, the Big Island of Hawaii offers spectacular scenery from beaches to rain forest to mountains and volcanoes.  I have enough inspiration to keep me busy making art quilts for the rest of my life!  I will leave this post with one of my favorite scenic views we happened across on one of our excursions.

Perhaps I will sneak in more photographs from time to time, or construct a slide show.  Meanwhile, I have six new customer quilt tops coming in this week, and still have to finish a few that I have had for awhile.  And finish Lessons Three and Four from my Pamela Allen art quilt workshop.  Better get busy!

For those of you who have been checking in on my blog only to find no new posts, I will say my new Hawaiian word that I love:  "Mahalo," meaning thank you, gratitude, respect, esteem, all of the above!  And here is the most well-known and used Hawaiian phrase, written in the unique island graffiti of white coral on dark lava rocks.