Scrubs HST Quilt Flimsy

Here's the latest kennel quilt top, for the furry postop patients at the veterinary surgery.  Made from repurposed scrubs, this one is all large half-square triangles.

I wanted to make a quilt to fit the largest kennel, and to get the most bang for the buck, I started cutting 8-inch squares from about eight different scrub tops that I had selected. Then I made HSTs from the squares, pairing a dark with a light/medium.

It measures 42 x 70, long and narrow, to fit the largest space.

It seemed to use up a lot of fabric, almost all of the eight tops, but I still have plenty of scrubs left to turn into quilts. 

We Interrupt This Program...
As I worked on this quilt, I kept noticing a musty smell in my sewing corner in the basement.  Yes, many basements are damp, but ours is normally pretty dry, so the musty smell was odd and something new.

I finally got down on all fours and crawled around on the carpeting, feeling for moisture.  I felt next to the walls and under the tables.  Nothing.  When you get down and crawl around on the sewing room floor, do you know what you do find?  Of course you do:  Threads, fabric bits, dust, cobwebs, dropped pins, ladybug carcasses, a stray peanut or two.  So I decided to vacuum.

And when I pulled up the antistatic mat under my sewing chair so I could do that, lo and behold, there was the dampness!

My theory is that it was caused by condensation happening underneath the mat.  The basement is quite cool and I sit with a space heater next to me as I sew.  Cold meeting warm, with the plastic mat acting as a vapor barrier, allowed moisture to build up in the area below it.

So I spent the next couple days on abatement, which involved spraying the glued-down carpeting with vinegar and water—which made my sewing room smell like a salad—and drying the carpet with box fans.  Then respraying with OdoBan and redrying.

On Monday morning, the tornado warning sirens went off at 4:00 a.m.  Not a fun way to start the day.  We had heavy rain and wind, and some small branches came down in the yard, but that was it.  I did go down to the basement to check the floor to see if things were still dry.  They were, despite the 2.5 inches of rain that had fallen in a short amount of time.

The sewing room is now back in business, but you know what I realized after moving everything out of the way and back again?  I've got too much stuff.  Let the decluttering begin.  

Linking to: Can I Get a Whoop-Whoop