Let's Salvage Those Selvages!!!

September 21, 2025

I always have a bin or two of those on hand, I can't seem to bring myself to just cut them off and throw them away.

I have to admit that right now, I have over two huge bins of selvages just sitting on my shelf begging to be used. Life gets busy and there doesn't seem to be enough hours in the day to do everything I want to do but I am way past due to make another selvage project. I'm thinking about making a bag of some sort. I thoroughly enjoy working with selvages and I find they give such a unique look to projects. This little throw is a combo of traditional piecing and some applique. It looks like I made hst's but it is just selvages sewn on one half of a square piece of fabric and then cut out into the proper size square needed. Because of the finished edge on the selvages this is a simple way to make hst's.

When I first started using selvages in projects I quickly discovered a couple of things:

*I made the mistake of being a little skimpy when I cut the selvage off the fabric. You will get a much cuter project if your selvage actually has some of the pretty fabric showing as well. Now I often cut it up to 1.75 inches wide which will give me a good portion of color.

*My second mistake: I was cutting all my selvages a uniform width. Now I like to vary the size, I cut some 1.25 inches, some 1.5 inches and some 1.75 inches. Again the project has a more unique and interesting look if the sizes are staggered.

Here you can see an example of the different widths.

*Now the third point that I consider a mistake may not be a big deal to you... at first, I was using any and all selvages, but I quickly learned that if you are planning on your project being longarmed, it is very hard to keep the shaggy edges on some selvages lying flat. In case you don't know what I mean here is a picture.

In the top example, the frayed looking edge will get caught up and stitched all willy-nilly by a longarm and I really didn't like that look. So now, I personally only use the clean edged selvages like the example at the bottom of the picture.

(If you are planning on hand quilting you would be able to control that much easier.)

*I also like to incorporate both sides of the selvages on a bolt. Often times one selvage edge has all the printing on it, and the other selvage has the fabric print going right out to the edge. The following picture is the selvage taken from both sides of the same fabric:

I like that by using a mixture of both types of selvages you get a very unique look on your project.

Sometimes the printed white band will even have cute sayings, or really gorgeous color swatches. Read the cute little saying on the selvage at the bottom of this next picture:

And how cute are the different colored reindeer in the top selvage????

I'm hoping that writing about this might get me motivated to finally tackle a bag for my next selvage project. But really, there are so many things you can do with them: pillows, bags, stockings, table runners, aprons, and wouldn't a star made from selvages be cute appliqued on the back of a jean jacket????

It was fun picking through and doing each of these blocks with selvages in the same color family.

Good option with Christmas coming up!

Just another thing to add to your long list of things to try ;)

Twila

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