Friday, July 7, 2023

Salvage the selvages!

 Wowzer, look at the size of that squirrel!

I just got carried away by a bag of selvages

and I don't know what happened!  I have learned 

a lot tho. Reinventing the wheel seems to be my,

"jam" as people say . 

So, first pulled out " The Bag" . 


 Lots of rescued fabric edges roll in my door so this 

bag is fairly large. The idea for a quilt top 

made from these edges has been rolling around

my brain for a while. A friend made a zipper bag

from them so that motivated me to dig in.

Sorting them into colors seemed okay so that 

was the first step. 


Then up to the summer sewing room 

since we are in the middle of a heat wave here in 

Alberta. Don't worry tho, some good old fashioned 

thunder-boomers are on their way later. 

Then I cut and sewed using glue to keep the 

strips in line! Do I dare say, " What a mess!"

Everything was sticky and although I made good

progress, it wasn't ideal. 

Two glue sticks later that idea was abandoned. 

This process should be fun and I was just sticky!


Inspiration dawned the next morning and I stitched

all the  pieces into like width long strips.

Three inch wide pieces made up the lower half of 

my pattern, while another 3 + inch strip set could 

be trimmed out for the tops. No glue involved 

and very speedy sewing on my classic featherweight! 

Here is my 2 sew sessions of block pieces. 



 The pattern will likely

be color selvage hexies with feature color hexies 

of regular fabric strips as accents if needed. 

Oh my, I am actually sewing hexies!

They should go together easily in long rows before 

final assembly, here's hoping!

Items learned:

                      ~  Glue isn't needed.  If you get                                                                 your sewjo on, you can feed the strips thru quickly

               ~    There is a lot of white!  I knew this going in but 
actually seeing it is another thing. 

~       The quilt will definitely have a soft, 
subtle color when completed.
 
     ~    Fuzzy edges on the selvages make it hard 
                  to work with. Not really, I just don't like them
        so I cut  off the fringe or move them to
the give away bag. 

All in all, the selvage project was very fun to do!

There are still about 4 more bags of sorted strips to 

sew up, but this weekend will be busy with 

family so only a bit of stitching will get done. 

Here is a sneak peak at the final layout!




Stay safe and sew those selvages!

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