THE SHISHU LADIES OF HILO:
Japanese Embroidery in Hawai’i 
by Shiho S. Nunes and Sara Nunes-Atabaki
With many color illustrations of the embroidery and photos of the people who created the embroidery.

The Shishu Ladies of Hilo is Shiho Nunes’ loving tribute to her parents, Ima and Yoshio Shinoda.  Written with her daughter Sara Nunes-Atabaki, it began as a family history and catalogue of Yoshio Shinoda’s shishu (embroidery) designs and evolved into a story of the stitching community created by the Shinodas and their students on the island of Hawai’i from the mid 1930s to the late 1960s.  The book is at once the story of a family, a record of the changes made to a traditional art form, and a celebration of the relationship between these women, their ethnicity and their needlework.

“All these threads, and more, we have gathered and woven into the fabric of our book.  I see the work of my grandparents and the women making colorful patterns against the strong holding threads of tradition, and this book as a way of preserving their stories and celebrating their achievement with needle, thread, and cloth.”  Sara Nunes Atabaki

Hawai’i Universty Press, 1999, ISBN 0-8248-2235-8
‘The Shishu Ladies of Hilo’ was cited for excellence
by the Hawai’i Book Publishers Association.
Find out more at Honolulu Star-Bulletin Archives and the Jacbayle Website.
You can find this book at Amazon.com and Barnes & Noble.