The Selvedge Apprentice

This is a story of a quilter who admires from afar...another seamstress...a queen. The Selvedge Queen as I call her. She calls herself the creative selvedge freak woman. She's probably closer to accurate. She creates with abandon....fabulous, almost miraculous projects from her house filled with selvedges. I imagine her in her sewing room surrounded by waist deep piles of selvedges, barely able to move from her cutting mat to the sewing machine. I drop by often to marvel at her skill, her creativity and her wild and uproarious sense of humor. Thanks to her I'm often grinning from ear to ear with my morning coffee. You may know her as Jodie, the woman behind RicRac. I've done a few little things with selvedges. Thanks to Jodie I started saving those little snippets of color and text. Little by little my bucket filled. I wondered what I might make from that bucket of jewels?

When I found out about my gallery show this summer I knew I wanted to make something special for the show. Then Ashley, one of my Block Party virtual quilting bee friends asked us to make spiderweb blocks for her turn. I was pretty apprehensive about it...you know, paper piecing. Ick! But, I did it and I really enjoyed this one. No lines to follow. I like that. So, what about a spiderweb quilt with selvedges? Maybe that was the project I was looking for. So, I made one section, then another and now I have this.


I used the templates from Bonnie at Quiltville and adapted her directions to make it work for selvedges. The center kites are a kona cotton called iced frappe. It's a very light aqua...icy is a good description. I think I like it as the centers. I'm varying how much fabric is visible on the selvedges. I like to show the fabric...I want the quilt to be colorful and interesting.

I've learned that selvedges can be deceiving. What looks like it could wrap around the world, as soon as you start trimming and sewing disappears in a blink of an eye. We shall see how big I can make this baby.

Jodie, I bow to your selvedge greatness.

Signed,
your humble apprentice



I was also able to put my circle experiments into a quilt top. I'm not totally satisfied with it, but I do think it's funky and bold and might make a nice baby quilt. I think quilting might make this come alive. I learned a bunch about piecing circles, though and I hope to put that to good use in another quilt for the show.

Project Improv
Arriving this week:
cacilie - switzerland 3 blocks
jackie b - 1 block (so many goodies, i'm spoiled! chocolate, a go cup coffee sleeve (beautiful) the sweetest origami mobile and even cash to help with postage. thanks my friend!)
lisa t - mi 3 blocks (thanks for swapping fabric with me...yours is on the way!)
debbie w - va 2 blocks, backing fabric (thanks for the sachets...they're in use already!)
gail n - mi 3 blocks and fabric (thanks! your fabric will combine nicely with debbie's to make a back!)
ayumi - ca 1 block and my first piece of japanese fabric...thanks so much!
paige - il 1 block
allie - ut 3 blocks
marie - wa 5 MORE blocks (thanks so much!!)
shelly - tx 1 block and 2 spools of thread. (they match boxes on my scrap quilt...gues where they are going?)
deb k - mi 2 blocks and money for postage

thanks so much folks. your generosity is heart warming.

project improv quilt tops are on the sewing agenda for the weekend. we're supposed to get the mother of all spring snow storms....as long as i don't lose power, it could be a VERY productive weekend. Let's hope so!

Oh, there's a flickr badge in my sidebar that takes you to the set in my flickr photostream with all the Project Improv quilt tops. A quick way to see all the tops that are completed so far.