Sunday, November 4, 2007

Hawaiian Snow



I’ve started Module 3 of the City and Guilds Patchwork certificate online course. 18 or so activities in this module with lots of hand work. I decided to get a head start on one of the final activities knowing Hawaiian style quilting is not for me and there would be much procrastination going on at every opportunity. It was fun enough cutting out the snowflakes- certainly messy enough. The flakes I liked best were angular and detailed. I knew those would pose extreme appliqué problems. I felt I couldn’t select the simple and gently curvaceous one because it would be ‘too easy’.
I really like the overall effect of the white flakes on black. Before seeing this photo I picked Halloween colours, orange and brown batiks.
I read a little bit on the history of Hawaiian quilts. Quite fascinating! Here is a snippet summary. “Before the first contact with whites (haole), the Hawaiians were making a type of Quilt called a Kapa, which was made of fabric pounded from the bark of the Wauke (paper bark or mulberry) tree. On the top layer they would print geometric and snowflake type designs, with a thicker layer in the middle and a smooth bottom layer or lining. They were sewn with fibres gathered from nature and needles fashioned from shells or the rib of the palm frond. From http://www.hawaiianquiltartist.com/ Thank goodness the Kemshall’s don’t have us ‘fashioning’ our own needles from natural sources…yet! I shall post the Halloween Hawaiian block in a few days.

No comments: