KAILUA-KONA — With 150 people packed into a hotel ballroom, sewing machines and fabric in tow, Karen Barry could feel the quilting enthusiasm.
“I love the creative energy here. Quilting is just another art form,” Barry said. “A lot of people just think quilts are just for beds, but there’s so many other things that you can do, that you can make.”
Barry and her husband, Robert, owners of the store Quilt Passions in Kailua-Kona, have sponsored Quilting on the Beach for 10 years now at King Kamehameha’s Kona Beach Hotel. The couple have watched the event grow from a small, local retreat, to what it is now, with quilters participating this year from all over the United States and Canada, as well as a few quilters from Germany and Japan.
“It certainly wasn’t this big 10 years ago, but it kind of just grew bigger and bigger every year,” Barry said.
In both February and July, Quilting on the Beach offers six days of sewing classes, bus tours, lectures and dinners for avid quilting fans. Four different classes are offered each day, and some of the more popular classes this month will return the week of July 14-21.
“You can see by the demographics, that it’s a certain age group, and that’s part of the reason we structured it a la carte, so they can pick and choose,” Robert Barry said. “So they don’t kill themselves. We try to encourage them not to take six full days of classes.”
Classes last week focused on creating quilts using the techniques: Hawaiian applique, with instructor Roberta Muller, flying geese with Mary Moody-Cox, cut and piece landscapes with Phyllis Cullen, and crossed canoes with Peggy Gelbrich.
With a variety of classes offered, there’s something for everyone.
“It’s not always quilting classes,” Karen Barry said. “We try to mix it up and do a variety of creative sewing classes. We had a class the other day for making umbrellas.”
Trips for the February quilters this time around included a trip to the quilt show that runs alongside the Waimea Cherry Blossom Festival. During even-numbered years, the February group sees the Quilt and Fiber Arts Show sponsored by Society for Kona’s Education and Art (SKEA).
The finale of Quilting on the Beach in July will be the Tropical Inspirations Quilt Show at King Kamehameha’s Kona Beach Hotel.
Barry created Quilting on the Beach with the vision to give local and snowbird quilters the opportunity to meet and create new quilts together.
“It makes people happy to make things,” Barry said.
“In my experience as a teacher, with kids, you throw scissors, construction paper, and crayons at them, and they’ll just make stuff. And the happy people are the people, when they grow up, (who) are still making things.”