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. 

How did

 this:

 become this?

With this:

I sorted my scraps into piles.  There is a pink and purple pile.  I am not in the mood for pink and purple right now.  Maybe later.  Maybe never.  The rest went into this pile and one other.   Those two piles became the scrappy quilt.

I needed to sew something and I did not want to create more scraps.  The original intent was to stuff as many as I could into a "IF IT FITS IT SHIPS' USPS box and ship them somewhere.  I still had many strips left over and Nina at the Quilt Zoo suggested that I just use them up in a scrappy quilt.

"Just start sewing."

Sounded like the perfect was to spend Labor Day Weekend.  That is, after I drove to Woodstock to fetch a Singer 201-3. Sigh.

I used a Kenmore for the first batch of scraps.  It's a whiner; though it makes a nice stitch.  I switched to the 301A, long bed. http://mysewingmachineobsession.blogspot.com/2012/02/what-was-i-thinking.html  but it was not so quiet either.  Something clunky in the feed dogs.  (I figured out what the noise is, I just can't fix it)

So then I got out the Necchi.  Very nice.  Very, very, very, nice.  She did very well for a while.  Then, out of nowhere, big loops on the bottom.  I thought that I had fixed that problem.  I changed to different thread, same thing.  I put the spool upside down on the thread holder (the big one, for cones) same thing. 

I cleaned the bobbin case, same thing. 

I finally switched to Guterman thread, top and bobbin.  No problems.  None.   Fancy Italian machine, like Fancy Italian car, likes high test.  The Kenmore and the 301 could not have cared less. 

I finished up the piecing and added some sashing. 

 I finished that this morning and spent an inordinate amount of time figuring out the back.  I had some big pieces left so I had to piece some more.  My goal had been to get it on the frame by noon.  That didn't happen.

Instead I got distracted by the clunky 301A, or the fact that my sewing loft was a sauna and the shop was cool and comfortable.

The feed dogs drop on the 301.  I did not notice the noise when I was using it for FMQ.  I figured that maybe the dogs were  misaligned and hitting something.  I finally isolated to noise to the feed throw out mechanism.  There was a bit of play, even after re-engaging the feed dogs.  I tried tightening the nut and stripped it.  Uh Oh

Lucky for me I bought out some sewing machine parts last winter.  It's true that I have bemoaned the fact that the guy NEVER THREW OUT ANYTHING.  I was very glad to find just the right sized nut to fit that bolt in the feed dog drop.  WHEW.

The noise is still there.  I think it must be from wear and tear; like my knee, or wrist, or thumb.  I certainly cannot figure out where else to tighten anything.  I tired, believe me.  I did, however, fix the height of the feed dogs.  They were too high.  Loosen nut N2 and turn Screw P2 and then tighten nut N2. 

Mom called during all of this and asked what I was doing.  I told her that I was about to put the scrappy quilt on the frame.

"Oh I wish I could be there so I could see how you do it.  Maybe you will send me pictures."

Maybe, I will. Maybe I will just post them on the blog.