Quilter wove history and love into every stitch

As her death drew nearer Thursday night, Poakalani Serrao’s family wrapped the woman known as "Hawaii’s one-handed quilter" in a quilt made more than a century ago by her grandmother.

For Serrao, quilts — and the hours of work to make them by hand — transcended the mere act of pulling needle and thread. So it was fitting that she would meet the end of her life cloaked in the handiwork of her grandmother Caro­line Correa.

"In our family when someone was sick you would wrap a quilt around them, and all of the love that went into it would make it easier and more comfortable," said Serrao’s daughter, Cissy Serrao. "When Mom was dying on Thursday, we took Grandma’s quilt and wrapped her in it to ease her way into the next world."

Serrao, 77, of Liliha, who was credited with helping revitalize the art of Hawaiian quilting, died Thursday from cancer.

She was born in Honolulu and entered the world without a right hand.

"They said the umbilical chord wrapped around her right hand and so it stopped forming," Cissy Serrao said. "She cooked, she cleaned, she made mine and my sister’s prom dresses. When it came to quilting she would always say, ‘If I can do it with one hand, I know you can do it with two.’ It was very hard to argue with that."

Poakalani Serrao was born into a School Street family of quilters, married into another family of quilters and — with her husband, John, a quilt pattern designer — started a family quilting business in 1972.

They went on to collaborate on six books on Hawaiian quilting as Serrao’s classes spread her family’s knowledge to children and senior citizens interested in learning the art of Hawaiian quilting.

"She believed that every quilt tells a story, every quilt is part of you," Cissy Serrao said. "Her classes were more than about quilting lessons. It was a history class."

Doris Shibuya started as one of Serrao’s students in the Mission House Museum in the late 1980s and followed her to classes at Queen Emma’s Summer Place and more recently to the Iolani Palace Old Archives Building.

Serrao developed lots of short cuts to making her own quilts one-handed — techniques that she passed on to her two-handed students, Shibuya said.

"But her lessons were always more than just about needle and thread," Shibuya said. "It was like a spiritual experience. She let us know that we were putting our heart and soul and love into making a quilt for someone we loved. … Hawaiian quilting will go on because of her."

Serrao is survived by husband John; sons Joseph and John, both of Las Vegas; daughters Cissy of Liliha and Rae Correia of Aiea; brother Wendall Chang of Kailua; sisters Danette Lono of Kailua, Candace Keliinui of Waimanalo, Carolena Olmos of Honolulu, Cherylmae Simon of Pearl City, Camille Omo of Kapolei and Carolyn DelaCruz of Honolulu; and granddaughters Missy and Thea Correia of Aiea.

Services will be held Feb. 25 at Oahu Cemetery Chapel. Visitation is scheduled at 9 a.m., followed by services at 11:30 a.m. and burial at 1 p.m.