A cautionary quilting tale; or Mandella v. Mouse

This happened almost two years ago now, but I typed it up at the time and it seemed worth adding here.

This is a cautionary tale of why you should keep an eye on (finish?) your UFOs, because this afternoon I’ve had my worst quilting disaster in nearly 25 years.

I haven’t been quilting much at all lately, having lost my lovely sewing studio in the garden room (we moved house in May 2017) and living in a house which is in chaos with the builders in. Anyway, I got thoroughly fed up with this state of affairs and managed to finish a simple little quilt top on the dining room table, still surrounded by bare plaster walls and boxes.

Flushed with success I thought I’d check out the UFO pile. How about that lovely Bargello top I started last year in a workshop at Pauline's Patchwork in Dorchester with Debi? That’ll do nicely. I found it tucked away in a bag in the junk filled spare bedroom. There it was, all wrapped up in the sheet I’d pinned it to, with all my spare fabric and the strips I’d already cut ready to make into extra sets, because this was going to be a monster quilt. But something was wrong. I didn’t remember putting anything furry in the bottom of the bag. What was it? Fishing around I pulled out ………..

…….. a very dead and decaying …….

…….. mouse!

Oh man alive, did it smell!!!

So the mouse goes out the door, closely followed by the entire eye wateringly whiffy and unsalvageable UFO. The only thing I’ve managed to save because it could go in the washing machine was all the uncut fabric. Did I tell you how bad it smelt? I still had it in my nostrils two hours later.

One saving grace is I know how the rodent got into my project. Back in Weymouth (the house we moved from) in my lovely garden room I was working away one evening when I heard scratching in the roof. So we put some traps up there and caught several mice over a couple of weeks. Then there were no more; problem solved and I didn’t think any more of it. I guess one of the little buggers made it out of the loft and down into the room itself.

Maybe that garden room studio wasn’t such a good idea after all!