In a quiet second-story room in Moiliili, the top floor of an old mochi factory with little windows that let in powdery light, women gather in that way that women (and sometimes men) have for centuries, to sew and talk, to teach and learn, to fix stitches and mend hearts and solve the problems of the world.

The old steel Bernina machines are loyal friends, always in the same place, always ready to work, quietly bearing witness to the stories and the laughter and sometimes the deep sighs that arise when something goes unexpectedly right or unexpectedly wrong.

“Aw, no! I have date with Jack!” Eunice Higashi cries. “Jack” is the name they’ve given to the tool used to undo errant seams. Jack the Seam Ripper. Laughing about it makes the mistake a little easier to bear. Higashi stands up from the machine and goes searching through a box of sewing tools. It’ll be OK.

Every day of the week, sewing classes are held upstairs in Kuni Island Fabric on King Street near University Avenue. There are only eight students in each class — one for each sewing machine — and if you’re able to score a spot in class, you hold on to it like a treasure. Some of the students have taken the same class for years, driving from as far away as Makakilo or catching the bus from Kaneohe to get to their favorite machine at the appointed day and time.

In the Wednesday morning class, Genie Kauhane finished the last quilt square for what looked like an advanced geometry project. “There!” she exclaimed. “Do you know how long I’ve been working on this stupid thing?”

“Weeks?” one lady guessed, admiring the squares.

“Nah. Months!”

“Well, at least it wasn’t nine months, like a baby,” teacher Val Ahina says. The ladies laugh, because they all know what that’s like and why it’s an apt comparison.

Ahina moves aside a tumble of snacks — lemon cake and musubi and individually wrapped Leonard’s malasadas — that were spread across a fold-out table, the kind for luaus. She then decides on a longer luau table, and she helps Kauhane lay out the individual squares. All the students gather around and admire the work. They give advice on where they think the individual pieces should be placed in the quilt. “Move that one. This part is too blue-y.” When they’ve reached consensus, they stand there together quietly remembering the day she first started, imagining the grandeur of the finished piece and smiling over all the hours they spent together to get this far.

Terri Kamakana, the owner of Kuni Island Fabrics, was the buyer for Henry Kunimune’s Kuni Dry Goods for 20 years. When Kunimune closed his business in 1997, he gave Kamakana his blessing, his name, a lease for the corner shop in his building and those old Bernina manual machines, sturdy and true. Kamakana hired from Kunimune’s former staff, and the ladies who teach upstairs from the fabric store are either first- or second-generation Kuni teachers, also sturdy, also true.

“There is not one thing that Amy doesn’t know,” says Anna Kerr, who has been taking classes at Kuni for about six or seven years. “I haven’t stumped her yet.”

Amy Tibayen, 70, teaches a “Sew Your Own Thing” class. Students can bring in their own projects or they can chose from her suggestions. Tibayen learned to sew from her mother, a seamstress who trained at the old Honolulu Technical school with an instructor from France. “My mother refused to make clothes for me. She said, ‘If you want to look nice, sew nice,’ so I learned or I wouldn’t have clothes.”

Though most of the students are in their retirement years, there is a young woman quietly working on pajamas for her 100-year old grandmother who, she explains, was a wonderful seamstress and still appreciates good construction. The pajama top is cut to fit such a tiny person, and Amy suggests using snap closures instead of buttons because those are easier for elderly hands.

A 9-year old girl with gold-lit hair comes bounding up the stairs. She introduces herself as Danikapatrick, all one word, like the race car driver but with a K instead of a C. Danikapatrick sits down next to the older ladies and starts work on a zippered pencil case. Soon, though, she has a date with Jack the Ripper, though she doesn’t seem the least bit perturbed about having to undo her sewing.

Claire Sato drove her sister to class at Kuni for 10 years but had never been a student herself. When her sister died, Sato found 14 quilts that her sister had started but never finished. She went back to Kuni and told Kauhane, “I want to finish my sister’s quilts.” She didn’t even know how to thread a machine — but over time, finished every one of her sister’s projects. “At the one-year memorial for my sister, I gave away all her quilts to family,” Sato said, and then adds with a grin, “… by lottery.”

Now, Sato says, she’s hooked. “My other sister needs me to drive her to the doctors, but I tell her, ‘Don’t schedule appointments on Wednesday mornings. That’s my sewing class day!”

The projects that come forth from this little room vary from simple cloth bags to award-winning quilts from original designs. The students make blankets for grandsons going off to mainland colleges and pillowcases to give to the homeless shelter.

And there are stories, countless stories, sewn into every stitch, sometimes ripped up and re-positioned and sewn down again. In between, there’s food, spirited political debate, memories of students who no longer come to class because of one reason or another, and the sense that out there on King Street or University Avenue, in greater Honolulu or the wide world, things might be kind of nuts, but in here, the machines will be ready to work and friends will sit by your side.

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Reach Lee Cataluna at 529-4315 or lcataluna@ staradvertiser.com.

Reach Lee Cataluna at 529-4315 or lcataluna@staradvertiser.com.