Selvedges. Interesting Pieces of Fabric

I got two craft magazines recently. Molly Makes and Homespun. These magazines are always full of interesting projects, ideas, photos and inspiration.

Mollie Johanson's reverse appliqué coasters and Pat Bravo's cool Carnaby Crossing placemats caught my attention right away. I didn't even read the instructions (how typical of me) but got absorbed in photos and that's when my mind went into a spin. I saw right away what I was going to make and what elements from these two projects I would use - the raw edge reverse appliqué and the selvedge fabric edgings. To tell you the truth, I used to throw selvedges away as something useless. Shh... Don't tell anyone. Luckily I quickly realised that they are pretty interesting pieces of fabric that can be used productively. Just like that for example.

For this project I had to go hunting for selvedges. Bolts of fabric were taken off the shelves in my craft nook, unfolded and checked. If there were any interesting edgings, they were cut off carefully to the full length. I read somewhere a tip. When you buy a new piece of fabric, cut off the selvedge about 3-4cm wide to get some fabric as well and store it separately for future use. This is exactly what I am going to do from now on, when I start buying fabric again.

The placemats are very simple but they let you get very creative, there are no limits here. I used three long selvedge strips for each mat that I fused first to the base linen and then top stitched along the edges. I made two small funky cars using the raw edge reverse appliqué. This is something I tried for the first time and have to say that I quite like the effect.

A few details were added with my all the time favourite running stitch - a bit of smoke and a few trees along the roads. I am sure that you worked out by now that the selvedges represent roads in my little pictures. A tiny handmade linen tag with a button, pretty binding and it's all done. 

If you are not a big fan of binding, you can finish the mats differently. That's what I am planning to do next time. I have to admit, I made my binding too narrow and didn't have more of that fabric. So I struggled with binding for a fair bit but I am happy with the end result.

Have you made anything using selvedges?