90" x 90"
2024
Aren’t selvages (the self-finished edge of fabric that runs along the length of the bolt) lovely? They most often include not only the details of the fabric manufacturer’s name, but often the name of the designer, color information, and perhaps the fabric collection name. Many selvages also added little circles that detail the colors in the fabric, and more often I see even greater attention to detail with the inclusion of design motifs. For years, while trimming the selvages from fabric, I’ve made it a practice to include a generous swath of fabric along the length as well. Soon enough, they filled a crate. And then a second crate. And then they could not be contained within the second crate and there was no room for a third crate. Something must be done.
It was time.
Time to make a Selvage Quilt! My very cooperative visiting sister-in-law (thank you, Heather!) patiently dumped several decades of selvages onto the floor and separated them into warm, cool, and neutral colors. Now I had three crates of selvages for which I still had no storage room.
Selvage quilt construction commenced. Why had I waited so long? This was FUN and FAST. No careful piecing. No matching points or intersections. Tons of fun colors and motifs and fonts to sort and sew. I couldn’t stop! I soon had enough blocks for a 90” x 90” quilt. And since I constructed it in Quilt As You Go Style, no basting and no wrestling a large quilt under the machine for quilting. I loved the result!
The only problem? After constructing 100 blocks, and using what I estimate to be at least 1650 inches (46 yards) of selvages, I still had three crates full of selvages, and no place to store them.
MUST make more selvage quilts…
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