Turkey Tracks:  January 20, 2016

Making Selvage Blocks

At our last Coastal Quilters’ meeting, member Linda Satkowski showed us how to make blocks using selvages.

Her method is SUPER!

She sews the strips straight down, leaving the edges.

The first thing I do with new fabric coming into the house is to wash it.  I then fold it without ironing.  When I go to use a piece, I tear off the selvage and iron it.  Sometimes I cut it in to strips on the spot–between whatever writing is there.  I also always tear off at least an inch of the colored fabric.

So, how to incorporate that fabric into the mix.

With Linda’s method, it’s simple.  No more flip and sew and guessing how if I’ve caught the edge of the selvage, which is often on the under side of what I’m sewing.

Here’s my first block–sewn onto muslin for stability.  It’s trimmed at 6 1/2 and will finish at 6 inches.

A few years back I made this quilt, “Ain’t This Fun?,” but also used strips of fabric that were too odd to cut into useable squares or strips.  I “flipped and sewed.”

BUT, if one surrounds a plain strip of fabric with two selvage pieces, no flip and dew would be needed.  Yes!!

 

Thanks so much Linda!