Cheryl Takitani-Smith of Foster Village was looking for a way to raise money for Kamehameha Schools' Project Graduation, an alcohol-free event usually attended by 98 percent of the senior class.

The annual senior lu'au, held in October, left a deficit, she said, so she was starting to panic. Takitani-Smith has been parent coordinator for the class of 2006, which numbers 450, since her daughter, Kanoe, was in the 7th grade. After six years of nearly full-time volunteer work, she couldn't bear the thought of putting on a less than perfect Project Graduation. But how to raise the necessary funds?

Several previous Kamehameha senior classes had worked with apparel manufacturers to create garments customized to their needs. The class of 2006 had a dream of taking it one step further by designing their own fabric.

Takitani-Smith understood their passion to create a textile that was theirs alone as a memento of their years at Kamehameha, but where to begin? She had no art, fashion or textile background. She had just about given up on the idea when she read an Advertiser story about textile designer Emma Howard's class in turning art into a textile design.

With trepidation, Takitani-Smith signed up for the last seat left in the class. "I felt so intimidated, because about half the people were true artists who had brought their artwork with them," she said. "One was a pattern maker, one was a former men's store owner, one was an expert on aloha shirts."

The other members of the class, however, were novices like her, so she settled in. "I got so desperate for an idea that I ran outside and collected laua'e (fern) leaves and Xeroxed them," she recalls. "I thought I could start there. Then I thought about tiare blossoms because they are all over the (Kamehameha Schools) campus. There was still something missing, so I tried filling in the empty space with lines and swirls."

She then learned the process of structuring the elements and creating a repeat so that each section of the fabric flows from one design to another.

Once she was happy with the final artwork, colors had to be chosen. Takitani-Smith and the students decided to go with two color schemes: blue and white, the school colors, and purple and white, since purple is the color of the class of 2006.

"We weren't really too sure about whether the kids would want to wear that much purple," Takitani-Smith said. "So we went with a muted purple, more of a periwinkle blue."

The textile neophytes had no idea that the minimum print run for a new design is 3,000 yards. Yikes! Would they be able to sell that much fabric and clothing? They bit the bullet and put their funds up front to get the fabric on the presses.

The class fabric has been extremely well received. It was made into aloha shirts, sun dresses, halter tops and volleyball shorts — and it's been a sellout. From the sales, the class raised $8,000 for Project Graduation.

Now the junior class is talking to Takitani-Smith about the process of textile design. They hope to send a representative to one of Howard's next textile design workshops.

Students wore their new garments to the senior lu'au. "It's so awesome to see the kids wearing the different designs with the material," Takitani-Smith said, with a glint of pride for a project that spelled success.

Reach Paula Rath at prath@honoluluadvertiser.com.