This graphic bedcover and quilted pillows sold at three different QBO sales. Their strong stylistic resemblance doesn’t mean they were made by the same person, rather they were produced by different quilters working in the same tradition. The craft that birthed them, quilting, began in Egypt around 3400 BCE, migrated into Europe by the 1100s, came to the Americas in the 1400s and was finally refined on a tropical archipelago in the early 1800s. The term “quilt” refers to stitching that secures a ‘sandwich’ made of batting (insulation) between two layers of fabric. It was first used to make an early form of soft armor surprisingly resistant to arrows. Any artistic design was formed solely by the lines of stitching. “Pieced” quilts are those created by cutting different colored fabrics into designs that are then stitched together, edge to edge, like puzzle pieces. The resulting quilt top is then sandwiched with batting and backing fabric and secured with quilting stitches which echo or enhance the design. Applique quilting ‘applies’ a design made of one or more colors of fabric to the top surface of a plain background cloth, and then is completed with batting and backing fabric held together with decorative stitching. For these particular applique quilts we have here, the main pattern is made by folding and cutting a single piece of fabric (much like cutting out a paper snowflake), resulting in a similar radial symmetry.
The wreath of flowers on the blue and white bedcover here hints at these textiles’ origins; with their ruffled petals and long, frilled pistils, they are Koki’o ‘ula or Hibiscus, which officially became the state flower of Hawaii in 1988. Hawaii itself has only been a full-fledged state for a scant 66 years, becoming the 50th state almost exactly 100 years after Oregon in 1959. Before that it spent 65 years as a U.S. territory, just as Puerto Rico is today. Polynesian peoples are believed to have settled the islands during a brief period in the 1200s, an astonishing achievement considering their distance (2,500 miles) from the settler’s place of origin. The settlers used convoys of sailing catamarans navigated only by observing the ocean currents, the cloud formations, and at night, the stars. Originally the 137 islands self-ruled, but in 1810, King Kamehameha the First united all of them into the Kingdom of Hawaii. Burgeoning British and American-run sugar cane plantations and cattle ranches first attracted Portuguese laborers, and later Japanese laborers, a change to the demographics of the islands that remains today.
Indigenous Hawaiians originally made their clothing from kapa, a thin, non-woven fabric made with the bast fibers (soft, inner bark) of native Rosales and Malvales trees or shrubs. Beating the fibers together felts them and the resulting soft cloth can then be stamped with dyed patterns, resulting in striking brown and black geometric textiles. But, the slightly springy fabric does not lend itself to piecing or quilting, that was introduced (along with suitable imported woven cottons) by the wives of Christian missionaries in the 1820s and reinterpreted by Hawaiians into the strong graphic portrayals of local flora that makes up the typical Hawaiian quilt. The Kingdom of Hawaii persisted until 1893 when civil unrest led to forceful intervention by American Marines protecting American interests and resulting in the overthrow of the last Hawaiian monarch, Queen Liliʻuokalani. The United States annexed Hawaii in 1898, but in 1993 Congress acknowledged that “the overthrow of the Kingdom of Hawaii occurred with the active participation of agents and citizens of the United States […] Native Hawaiian people never directly relinquished to the United States their claims to their inherent sovereignty as a people over their national lands”. That statement remains relevant today as some Hawaiians want to be a sovereign nation again while others want to stay American. Either way, Aloha from QBO.
Tuesday Treasures was started by our staff member, Jeanne Lusignan. Each week she will be featuring items that have been found at our estate sales. If you would like to submit a treasure for Jeanne to feature in a future installment of “Tuesday’s Treasures”, please follow the button below and send us an email! Please attach a few photos of your treasure in a beautiful setting as well as any details you have about your item such as manufacturer, use, age, region of origin. If you don’t know about the piece, that’s okay! We still might be able to research it for you! Don’t forget to tell us what makes this item such a treasure to you!