Week 7: Hawaiian Kapa Style T-shirt

Full view of T-shirt: I even signed it!

This week’s t-shirt is a bit unique; it’s because I designed and printed it myself. It is a bit simple, but means a lot to me. Also, since I am on a brief sabbatical from hula, I miss my hula sisters, my kumu hula (hula teacher) and dancing with the group weekly. Writing about this brings me back to enjoyable memories.

I made this shirt as part of my hula halau (hula school) project. Each year, for our halau birthday, my kumu hula temporarily switches from dancing to crafts. We had two years of lei making (different styles), so she figured that stamping would be a good change of pace.

Stamping is part of our study of the Hawaiian culture. Originally, the stamps were applied to kapa or Hawaiian bark cloth. Ancient Hawaiian women would spend the whole day creating kapa while the men would hunt or fish, gather fruits, and cook. Pounding kapa is a long process: it takes days. That is why men do most of the food preparation.

Detail of design: The middle one is the lehua.

The stamps that we used are traditional bamboo stamps with patterns carved on one side. These are called ‘ohe kapala. My kumu shared with us that each stamp has a meaning.  For my shirt, I chose the lehua flower, the fern, one that represents animal footprints, and the sun. The design symbolizes my family: the lehua symbolizes me because that is my favorite Hawaiian flower; the fern, my husband, since it symbolizes a masculine energy; and the footprints for our cat. The nine suns represented the nine years we’ve been together (I made this a couple of years ago – we’ve been married for almost 12 years). I chose a horizontal pattern because it’s simple, and that pattern is in the traditional Hawaiian style.

Stamping is one of my favorite Hawaiian crafts (the other is making leis – particularly the crochet ones). I would like to have my own set of stamps, but I think it would be overly challenging to carve the patterns in bamboo. I may start out with something easier like rubber stamps and go from there.

For more information on making kapa, check out the “how to make kapa” page of kapahawaii.com or the one on kapa designs and patterns.