Hawaii Vacation

Kimura H Fabric Store

Kimura H Fabric Store

City of Refuge

Salt water flowing into a hot springs

Discount Fabrics in Hilo

Discount Fabric in Hilo

In the middle of January we went to Hawaii. My husband wanted to see about buying property on the big island. I guess you can get some decent land for cheap. Turns out the reason the land is cheap is because no bank will lend on the property because of the lava flow. We also learned that if you leave a house vacant the locals will take everything. We heard story after story of stolen solar systems and houses that were broken into and everything taken...doors, windows, cabinets and rugs. So even though we found cheap land, it's not worth it because if we leave nothing will be there when we come back.
The best thing about going to Hawaii was it was WARM. This winter in Portland was terrible. Lots of ice and snow this winter making us hibernate. I had already looked up the two things I wanted to see in Hawaii...crushed penny machines and fabric stores. 
We happened on the first fabric store by accident. It's called Kimura H Fabric, I had written the name and address down but did not know exactly where it was on the island. We stopped to at a thrift store and it was across the street. I loved the place. It's a little dusty looking from the outside but the fabric inside was beautiful. I bought a beautiful red and white hawaiian print that I want to use to make a sun dress. I bought a brown and black hawaiian print to make a shirt for my husband and some sushi fabric to make pants for the husband too. I like the selection of the fabric at Kimura, it was not too expensive and I found some bark cloth that was quite cheap too. But I had to stop myself from buying too much fabric...I already have a large stash of fabric. I just can't resist hawaiian prints. 
We spent most of our time in Kona and Captain Cook. It was warm and the water was wonderful. We had some magnificent sunsets, only thing was as soon as the sun went down it was DARK. There is not any light pollution, which was really nice. We ate a lot of fish and sat at the beach and read. 
We went to Hilo on the 'wet" side of the island. Everyone said it was the wet side but I had no idea how wet. It rained the 3 days we were in Hilo. In fact Hilo flooded, a couple of the streets were closed. I did find the fabric store in Hilo called Discount Fabrics...it blew my mind. I had to buy more fabric. The hawaiian print selection was incredible. I bought some lovely turquoise & gold with a nice tropical theme, it was about $7 a yard. A steal if you ask me. I also bought a beautiful dragon print that was on sale. I got out of Discount Fabric for less than $50. 
My husband does not like to do tourist things, so we didn't go to see a lot of attractions. We did go see a black sand beach, the volcano and the City of Refuge. We drove all over the island to get a feel for the place. We also saw a lot of beautiful birds. Sitting on a deck in the morning drinking coffee and listening to the birds blew my mind. It was very soothing. 
So the food was good, the water warm, the scenery was beautiful. Next time I would stay on the warm side the entire time, skip Hilo except for maybe a day trip. 

Granny Square Quilt

I made this quilt top a couple of years ago. I kept seeing this pattern pop up on flicker and found the original pattern here. I fell in love with the scrappy feeling of the quilt. I have a passion for scrappy quilts, you should not ever have to go buy 1/2 a yard of 10 different materials to make a quilt. I come from a family of seamstress so there was always scrap material around. 

I made the quilt top and actually forgot about it till one of my cats jumped up on the shelf and down toppled all my unfinished quilt tops. I pulled out the top and started to look for fabric to complete the back. I had a long piece of this lovely light purple that I wanted to use but I also wanted a little color...something simple but that still had a snap of color. I played around with different colors on my design wall and came up with a nice backing. I think the solid strip of turquoise and the red added a nice break in to the eye.
I had taken a class on the long arm machine at Modern Domestic last year, but just in case you missed that post...a quick recap...when I went to do my 2 hours of studio time I broke the machine...an $18,000 machine. A piece of thread broke in the bobbin and they were unable to get it out, the machine froze and they had to pull it all apart. This is the finished quilt that broke the machine. Needless to say I was a little shy to go back for fear that they would never let me use the machine again. 

SO this year for my birthday I signed up for another class to use the long arm machine at Modern Domestic, This time the class was 2 days, 3 hours each day. There were only 3 of us in the class and we each got turns playing with the machine after learning a design. I liked the wave pattern and the loopy pattern, I had done squares inside squares on all the quilts tops I had done so far.  After you take the class you get 2 hours of studio time. 

I finally went on August 11th, 2 hours of sewing on the machine and no problems....well one small one...I put the needle through my finger and broke the needle, but I did not break the machine. I also quilted part of the batting to the back of the quilt. The batting clung to the back of the quilt and when I attempted to roll the quilt on the arms it would not move. That is when I realized I had quilted some of the batting to the back. Oh well, now that I have done it I know what to watch out for when rolling and unrolling the quilt sandwich on the machine. 

I really like the look of this quilt, it's all puffy from the machine quilting and the loopy pattern that I used was a nice contrast to the granny square pattern. I really liked making this pattern I think I will try it again but make it much more scrappy.