This post is hard to write, I want to be eloquent, but the words do not come easily. One of my friends recently lost her husband to cancer. We are a group of eight quilters and have been friends for years. I want to say we are to young to be widows but of coarse this is not true. We planned this quilt for Judy and Jerry to remember all the wonderful times they had in Hawaii. They loved Hawaii and were able to travel there frequently. 
The blocks were blanket stitch appliqued by machine and by hand.
The fabrics are all batiks.
There are turtles in the border fabric and the turtles outlines are quilted in the background fabric surrounded by pebble quilting. 
We presented this quilt to Judy last night at a little Christmas dinner party. Her daughter, also a quilter, made the label and we all signed it. 
Judy, it was our honor to make this quilt for you and we hope you feel our love when you wrap yourself in it.
In loving memory of Jerry Unrein, a wonderful husband, father, and friend,
from,
Cheri, Leslie, Cheryl, Pat, Cathy, Elizabeth, and Julie
quilts that were in the show. The echo quilting was just outstanding, I think it is one of the hardest types of quilting.
I also tend to migrate to the more traditional quilts
and I spotted this one way across the convention floor and liked the colors. On closer inspection I was astounded to see all these little pieced log
cabin squares, probably about 1/4 inch logs. 
called True Cut by the Grace quilting frames company. There was an electric model and a model that just required running your rotary cutter against the sharpening stones that were set in a wood block.
The Roxanne's glue people also had a new container for their glue that I use all the time in applique, it is a sort of accordion bottle and a new cap for the needle that keeps it air tight and is not suppose to need cleaning of the needle dispenser.
best of show quilt by Sharon Shamber showing her amazing quilting and applique.
This is her third best of show at the International Quilt Festival in Houston. What a talented quilter she is. 
My finish is the Hawaiian quilt for my son and daughter-in-law, YEA!!! It is a little hard to see the pattern in this photo, the center is fish swimming in a circle with lots of sea coral. The border has more coral, fish, snails, and those cute
little crabs right on the corners. I machine quilted it on the Handiquilter and it worked pretty well, I am a newer long arm quilter, it is a little difficult to quilt in the ditch around applique, but the echo quilting went well. I made wider echoes - 1 inch - and did the top and bottom and then one turn on the quilt frame for the two sides. 
I know, I know, perfectly shameless way to get yet another picture of my grandson in the blog and I have jumped to far ahead in my story. Back to what this has to do with Hawaiian Applique. When the family of the groom lives in the United States and the family of the bride lives in Japan where is the perfect place to get married? Hawaii ! 
The wonderful week of their wedding is still surreal to me but we all came away from Hawaii with a love of Hawaiian quilts. When we came home I made a small Hawaiian quilt for them with turtles (because we swam with the turtles one day in Hawaii) dolphins, pineapples, and flowers from their wedding. 
The promise was always out there that one day I would do a Hawaiian quilt for their bed. Now here we are 4 years later and ta dah... 
Kaori loves the ocean and choose a sea foam green color for the applique, it is a fairy frost so it sparkles. The quilt is 104 X 104 inches. The pattern is called Fish on Coral and it was designed by Elizabeth A Akana (copyright 1972). I started the applique and had a lot of wonderful help from my mother who did all of the outer border and the outer edge of the center design. This is the finished top, now for the quilting. I was going to have the quilt hand quilted, but reality set in, this is going to a young family, I want them to USE IT. I am going to put it on the long arm today and machine quilt it. I still intend to do echo quilting in all of the white area, so this will involve a turn on the frame, I will keep you posted on my progress. Happy Stitching all... Cheri