Selvages

Today I'm featured on the Selvage Blog. It's a site that presents quilts and other items made with or includes selvages ... you know, those edges of fabrics that so many people can't wait to cut off their yardage and throw away. I'm there specifically because of the center (and focal) block created by Christine Copenhaver in my quilt "Come With Me to the Kasbah".
Selvages and the trimmed away scraps or "orts" (as the British call them) are intriguing to me. Those of you who follow my blog know I collect them by bags full and they're the origin of a lot of my work.
My "ortwork" collage quilts (click to see album) have selvages worked into them. Those with the most are the lake series. I went through all the lake piece photos to find one good example. The selvages are difficult to spot because there is so much layering and twisting of pieces. My favorites are those that have a "fringed" edge because they have the look of spray shooting up from the top of a breaking wave. It's easier to spot the selvages within the compositions before the free-motion machine quilting is added.

I sometimes wonder why I have shelves of folded big pieces of fabric when it's the bags of orts that I'm digging through so often.

Well, there are times that I do need large pieces for borders and backings. And then I do occasionally piece regular quilts . Most recently I've pulled out just about all those you see in the above photos to find just the right combination of fabrics to make birds. Oh, what a mess!