tabi

 Have you ever seen a japanese fishermans water shoe?  I bought these about 35 years ago at a hardware store in Waipahu.  I think the name was Arakawas.  They had all kinds of japanese gardening tools and fishing stuffs.  I picked these up thinking that I would use it when I went scuba diving.  I think I only used these once or twice and put them away.

 I have decided to throw these away since I probably will never use them.  The rubber is starting to disintegrate.

I think I was originally fascinated with the fastening.  It is not a button or a zipper or a shoestring.  It is 3 metal tabs that are slotted into the woven slots on the other side.  There are 2 slots which control the size or tightness of the show.  On closer examination, the metal tabs are sewn into the seam.  This must have been a very powerful sewing machine.

lavendar elephants

 Lavendar, yellow and baby elephants.  That was the description, my coworker made describing the baby quilt that she wanted me to make.  What a challenge.  No pink no blue and how do you make an elephant?  I went on the internet and googled baby elephant quilt and I got a free pattern to piece the elephant block.  I picked this pattern, because it was a pieced pattern.  The samples showed how you can add button eyes and  yarn tails and the trunk holding balloons.   Since this is for a baby, I did not add the buttons.

Here is a closeup picture.  I did add a yarn tail for the momma and baby elephants.  The baby elephant is not pieced.  I traced the pattern, cut it out of a lavendar fabric, turned under the seams and topstitched it onto the yellow background.

I cut out the elephant pattern with freezer paper and put them in different places on the quilt.  The quilting is a meander stitch.  Tina was very happy with the quilt.