Sunday, December 4, 2016

Tidy OOP

Do you remember in The Producers (the movie) when Ulla (payed by Uma Thurman) kept saying "Ulla tidy oop"?  It is one of our favorite expressions.  Not that we tidy up all that much.

Yesterday I was thinking "Ulla tidy OOP" as I was playing in the sewing loft.  I have an abundance of scrappy blocks. Some went into  Alice's Quilt.  I even had thought that I might sew them all together thusly.  Instead I came up with this:
The whole point of "tidying OOP" is to reduce the stash.  In auditioning fabric , though, I create quite the mess.  First I went through the larger pieces hanging on my rack.


I  pulled out a possible candidate.  Tangled in the loose thread of one of the fabrics was a trapped mouse.  Naturally I screamed, dropped the hanger and all, and ran to the other side of the room.  As if  a teeny, tiny, little mouse is going to hurt me. I'm weird like that. 

I knew that I had to deal with it myself.  The GWH (Great White Hunter)  was running errands (for me, I might add).  So, I warily approached and discovered that the mouse was still alive, caught in the trap only by his tail.  I screamed again, this time, feeling his fear and confusion.   The fabric hangs close enough to the floor so a mouse, dragging a trap, could get enmired in Moda.

I picked up the hanger and all, dragged the poor little thing across the floor, down the stairs and out the door into the snow.  He fought the whole way, trying to get loose.  I kept saying "I'm sorry"  over and over. 

Outside I placed the hanger on the chain link fence and went to retrieve tools to release the tail.  First I cut the threads loose and he tried to crawl off dragging that trap behind him.  "No you don't!" I stepped on the trap, lifted the hinge with a pair of pliers and freed him. He promptly headed toward the door to the loft.   "Don't do it!"  and he veered away, off to the weeds.  Somewhere there is a very frightened little mouse with a broken tail shrouded in Moda fabric threads.

 Since there was nothing on the rack suitable for this quilt, I turned to my smaller scraps.  I found just the color, my favorite; a piece just under two yards.

Luckily there was enough
Now to piece it.  This is a perfect project for today.  Mindless busy work.  I need that. 





5 comments:

  1. My mouse was dead, squished by the garage door, before he could get in. I've had to pick them up, in sticky traps, still alive, many years ago. UGH!

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  2. I just love the scrappy blocks. They are just so comforting in their appearance. I would be happy with a whole quilt like that. I am sure you will use the big spaces to do lots of yummy quilting stitching. I would almost be tempted to do big stitch quilting there with perle cotton, but hey, that's me. Keep on sewing up a storm!

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  3. I love this Ulla/mouse adventure arrangement. I have a deep love for novelty prints, and I know that they can get so busy bumping into each other that they are hard to read. And putting a solid between sections, or peeking out, really makes the whole thing snap together.
    And this has snapped. Yum.

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    Replies
    1. And it looks even better pieced! In the middle of that process now.

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  4. Hi I hate trapping mice but you have to do something to stop them. I once got a rat in my shed so as I am not particularly scared of them started to pull things out of the shed and it shot out of the door. Great, until collie rounded it up and herded it back in the shed. It ran up my leg and across my hip! I discovered I wasn't as brave as I thought, yikes! Did think about swapping the collie for a terrier! Your blocks look super dooper, can't wait to see the finished quilt. Sharon x

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