Besides cross stitching, I'm no good with embroidery. And I don't have one of those fancy machines that would do it for me...I can imagine it would be a pain trying to program the machine to do 49 different island designs.
Fabric paint? Its not a bad idea, but I don't think I'd like the effect the paint for this quilt. It would...I can't think of the word...where the design is raised. Anyways, the islands wouldn't be flat and I want more of a map-like feel to it. And in my experiance with fabric paint, when doing large areas, I can never get the paint to go evenly.
I'm really liking the screen printing/silk screening idea. I kind of remember how to do it...basically just a wooden frame with a fine mesh on it and you place it on the fabric, put the ink on one side of the mesh, and swipe it through with a sqee-gee type thing. But I don't remember exactly how the design was transfered onto the mesh. There's the "traditional" way of doing it where you put a stencil of your design over the fabric, but there's a way you can get the design transfered directly onto the mesh. I can remember bits and pieces of it. The design was transfered onto those plastic sheets they use for overhead presentations, put onto the mesh, and some sort of stuff was put onto the mesh (I just remember it being neon green) and I think a light was shined through...something like that...but the stuff that was applied mesh would stick to the mesh and when you washed it off it wouldn't come off except where your design was. I've been trying to find a website that would show me how to do that, but I've only found one...and its video demenstrations...never will be able to see them with my internet connection so I don't even know if its what I'm looking for.