Selvages - yet another series I need to make! - Project #1

I have a serious problem with selvages. Yes I do.

I’ve been saving them.

And saving them.

I am starting with these three large bags of them. Yes, this is a LOT.

However, this does include the printed part and the part that isn’t printed. I’m finding as I pull out a selvage I want to use, there is often the corresponding part without words that I will probably not use.

However, I’ve read that some people think that the fuzzy edge are cool, etc. So far they are going into another bag and I may offer them as strings to someone.

We’ll see.

At one point I gave away a whole bag of them to someone in our group on Facebook. That person said she was going to make a charity quilt from them. Once I give away something, I don’t micromanage what you do with them but I’d like to use up what I want to do before giving away another set of these.

However, I do think they are super cool and wanted to actually learn to use these things.

So, the time is now. I want to get going on them.

A few years ago making things with selvages was a “thing’. Not so much these days, I don’t think. I guess that is how I roll—not with the fad at the moment. I’ve scoured the internet for some ideas of things I want to make. This is one I saw - (slightly different, but this idea).

So, the first project is this one.

This top will be about 56”x71” if I use this one.

I drew up what I am doing in EQ and this is what it will be.

The blocks I am making are 10.5” and will be 10” finished.

I am using a 3” cut red square for the center of the quarter log cabin block.

This is a rather simple block. I’ve made many a quarter log cabin block. I’ve tried to use selvages enough to know that they are pretty basic to work with. I am not cutting several inches of good fabric as an add-on to the selvages on purpose as I wanted to use the selvages, and not make it about the fabric beside the selvages.

So this is where I am on this particular top.

I will admit that this project is about the opposite of that Green Gingham quilt top I showed the other day!

It’s so slow! I spent maybe 4 hours working on 10-11 finished blocks. My blocks are not perfect.

Some may have the selvages perfectly lined up, however, mine are not. I will have to work on that.

But I am loving what is happening here. I am taking literally what others would throw away and using it to hopefully make something cool. I do think selvages these days are totally fun. Plus, I’ve enjoyed looking at what is written on the various ones. I’m sure I will come up with even more variety of name brands. I mean, seriously - I have a lot of these I can use!

This will not be a charity quilt, by the way.

I’d have to direct this quilt to someone who quilts as they are probably the only ones who would appreciate or even know what a quilt top like this involves. (Just saving this many selvages, is massive, for a start!)

I hope to find some other interesting ideas to make.

I’m not interested in making a regular string selvage quilt - at least not at this point. I may change my mind on that. We’ll see. I’ll finish this first one and get it quilted and see where I am on the bags of selvages. I have no idea how many blocks could be made with the selvages I have. It is intense to make ‘fabric’ with them as it is quite slow. I mean, there isn’t a lot of progress each time around as you make the blocks.

But the red squares make the blocks way more fun than just a simple selvage block. If I wanted to repeat this idea, I could try it with yellow center blocks there. Might be kind of cool as well. We’ll see how much energy I can afford to expend on this project. I’ve got charity quilts to get going on quilting for 2025. At least I have all 120 tops matched up to backings and actually “ready to go”. :)

Thanks so much for coming along with me on this journey!

Have a great day wherever you are reading this.

Becky Petersen6 Comments