Tapa Cloth

January 2016 has been a whirlwind of travel for us.  First a quick trip to San Diego, CA.  Then a week later we were off to San Antonio, TX.  Two unexpected escapes from a cold Minnesota winter!

Hawaiian tapa cloth: San Antonio Museum of Art

We didn't see any quilts in the San Antonio museums, but this caught my eye.  In the San Antonio Museum of Art was a Tapa Cloth from Hawaii.  We are used to seeing traditional applique Hawaiian quilts, but this piece of bark 'cloth' has a geometric design that looks just like traditional quilt piecing to me.

Decorated Tapa, or bark cloth, was used in ceremonial clothing for chiefs, mats for ceremonial dances, bed sheets and room partitions in the late 1700's and 1800's.  It might be fun to make a quilt inspired by this piece someday, but the math to figure out how to get the blocks to fit together would be tricky. Could you see it as a decorative runner across the foot of the bed?  Possibilities!