Quilt show sewn together with love

By Mary Kaye Ritz
Religion & Ethics Writer

There is a message threaded through the many colorful, symbolic quilts made in Hawai'i, and it is this: The fabric of our community is woven in righteousness.

Stuart Ching, interim executive director and curator of the Mission Houses Museum, chose "Kapa Awaiaulu: The Fabric of Our Community" as the theme for this year's 24th annual quilt exhibit.

Museum staffers gathered quilts from local community organizations, and even arranged a one-day showing of five sections of the AIDS Memorial Quilt, 12 foot-square sections bearing the names of Hawai'i residents.

The portions of the much larger national quilt will be displayed tomorrow on the lawn of the museum, then taken across the street to Honolulu Hale for viewing on the third floor through July 5.

The museum's show brings together about 25 quilts from an array of community sources, and the display will be sectioned into themed rooms. For example, there's the "health" room, with quilts from Queen's Medical Center, Shriners Hospital for Children, Straub Foundation and Kapi'olani Medical Center for Women and Children.

There's the "protection" room, with quilts from the Honolulu Fire and Police departments, Hickam Air Force Base and another military quilt, which the Army Corps of Engineers extracted from a glass case at great expense, Ching said. "Thank you to the general!" he quipped.

Prominently displayed at the exhibit's entrance is a quilt started by Margaret "Peggie" Ehlke, the museum's longtime curator and registrar who retired in 1986 and died last October at 81. Members of the quilting group at Kawaiaha'o Church finished the Hawaiian-design quilt, with its

radiating "cup of gold" pattern, in time for display, and the show is dedicated to her.

The show opens tomorrow and runs through Aug. 10. Admission normally is $4, but will be free tomorrow. For more information on the show, phone 531-0481 or 523-4674.