Basting Mice

I've just finished quilting a slightly bigger quilt (well bigger for me), its been a bit of a struggle handling all the extra weight through my sewing machine.  

Now that its finished I've remembered a wee story about a spray basting experience - 

Awhile ago I watched the Craftsy video Quilting Big Projects on a Small Machine  by Ann Peterson. She demonstrated spray basting - it appeared easy to do and would make quilting a lot easier, etc.  

Off I went to a local quilt store and purchased a pink can of magic, why pink? only because it was way cheaper than another brand and it was cheap because it had been bought at another quilt shop that was closing down.

I thought I'd try on a small quilt (28" sq), so off outside I went - didn't trust myself spraying adhesive on our carpet!  So I started spraying, except the can continued spraying - the nozzle was jammed, no amount of wiggling, etc. would stop the flow of stickiness! Before my hands became totally covered in muck I put the can in a terracotta planter pot (with hole in the base - this is an important detail).

I then washed my hands for ~15 minutess (as recommended on the label) to completely remove all the sticky stuff.  Meanwhile the can was still releasing adhesive into the pot!  Presumably it would have been good for a number of quilts.

By the next day the can had finally emptied itself, the sticky stuff had escaped out of the (drainage!) hole in the pot and spread onto the ground and spread a bit more.  Firmly stuck in the sticky stuff was a mouse - even the cat thought better than trying to retrieve it.  Anyway that night it rained, quite a lot, the next morning most of the stickiness had washed away and the mouse? It was still stuck to the ground and was completely flat.

The moral of the story? definitely do all spray basting outside and Craftsy videos are really quite good.