This is the 5th Corona quilt I made and I'm happy it's now quilted and bound. This simple quilt was a very long time in the making! My first trip to Hawaii was with my mom in 1995, we visited the Big Island and the red carpet was rolled out all the way! My mom was there on business and the Hyatt Waikaloa (at the time) really wanted her to bring her business to them so they treated her and me like queens! From the day at the spa to the dinners to the helicopter ride over Kilauea, it was all magical, well maybe not Kilauea, I had nightmares about that for a long time!
One of my souvenirs was a small bundle of Hawaii fabrics. I really wanted to make a Hawaiian quilt when I got back home, but life got in the way and those Hawaiian fabrics were soon tucked out of sight. Two years later I was lucky enough to go back to the Big Island, this time with both of my parents and my sister for mom's big meeting. Once again we were treated like royalty, and everything I didn't do on my first visit I was able to do on the second. By the end of my trip I considered myself a true Hawaiian expert on shave ice, mahi mahi, Spam musubi, poke, po'i, and drinks with umbrellas in them, and Hawaiian fabric!
This pattern, while simple, is called Postcards From Hawaii and those rectangles are supposed to be 3 x 5-inches but I cut them wrong, no surprise there, right? They're not "legal" postcard size so I couldn't really call this a postcard quilt - now it's my Aloha quilt. Along with the fabrics from my first two trips to Hawaii, I have fabric from some of the mister's Hawaiian shirts, those that mysteriously shrunk in the dryer and I have fabrics from friends.
After several more trips to Hawaii, buying fabric each visit, I know I had enough fabric to make TEN Hawaiian quilts...something needed to be done! Either I had to stop going to Hawaii or I had to start making Hawaiian quilts! The fabrics were moved to a place in my workroom where I couldn't ignore them - but still I managed to do just that! And I ignored them to the point that about half of the fabric fell off my work table into a bin behind it...and there it sat, quietly mocking me I'm sure! It took Corona Virus to get me going! I finally DO get going and I don't have enough fabric! I looked and looked but couldn't find my fabrics!! And my workroom had been cleaned!!! Thanks to friends I was able to get it finished and after another search of my workroom, I found the escaped fabrics!!! I had placed some batting scraps on top of the bin where the fabrics fell...the "batting bin" so I didn't think to look there again! There was a giant forehead slap right after finding it! The backing for this quilt is from IKEA, they carry great fabric (on rolls) and it's really reasonably priced. Most of it is heavy, canvas-like, but this fabric is 100% cotton, light-weight and I thought it was the perfect backing so when I saw it in 2018 I bought it, really not knowing what I was going to use it for. When I finally got around to making this quilt I remembered this fabric and it reminded me of all the colors of flowers you can see in Hawaii - it was perfect!
When I started working on this quilt last April I was hoping to have it finished in time for Seafair, thinking it would be the prefect summer picnic quilt. Well guess what? It was finished in time but Seafair was cancelled. The parades, the parties, the Blue Angels soaring over Lake Washington, the Hyro-plane races - all cancelled. This is the week of summer that I look forward to the most - I block everything from my calendar the last week of July and plan our picnic feast on the shores of Lake Washington to watch the Blues fly. Woe is me.
Normally I would just tell myself, cheer up, Seafair and the Blues will be back next year...but with the way things are going, will they?!?!? Will we ever be able to fly to Hawaii again and not have to spend 2 weeks in a hotel room eating Spam from room service while watching surfers from our window?!? The pandemic is a great equalizer, what would be first world problems are now everyone's problems! So mask up and wash your hands and please keep your distance...I'll be at home watching Netflix trying to use up the rest of my 25 year old Hawaiian fabric!
