Selvage Spools...The Tutorial!

As promised a little tutorial so you can make your own selvage spools quilt.
Start by sorting your selvages by color. Press them flat and trim so they have a nice straight raw edge. The wider you trim them the more fabric you'll be able to show. I cut mine from 1 to 2 1/2" wide. I like to show the fabric!
You'll need a paper foundation to make your spool. I made all sorts of different sizes. This one is 4" x 8". It's fun to have short, tall, skinny, and fat spools. Experiment with different sizes! I recycle paper from my computer for foundations.
Audition your selvages. Cut them a bit longer than the foundation. Start at the bottom with a non selvage piece. The cute part of the selvage will disappear in the seam allowance so there's no need to waste a selvage. Stack the selvages in the order you'd like them to appear and with about the amount of fabric you'd like to reveal.
Place the non-selvage strip on the bottom so it extends just a tish over the paper. Secure it with a dab of glue if you'd like.
Place the first selvage on top of that strip revealing some of that strip's fabric. Reduce your stitch length for paper piecing...about 1.5 on my machine and sew about 1/16th of an inch from the edge of the selvage. I run the inside edge of my 1/4" foot along the selvage edge and it works perfectly.
Continue adding selvages in the same way until the paper is covered.
It should look something like this.
Flip the foundation over so the paper is on top. Use the edges of the paper to trim the edges.
Remove the paper foundation from the back. Cut two 1 1/2" by 8" strips for the sides and sew one to each side and press.
Choose fabric for the top of the spools. I coordinated the tops with the selvage color. Cut two 2 1/2" x 6" strips and sew to the top and bottom. I cut angles into some of my tops just for fun, but that's my style. You can leave yours nice and straight if you'd like.
To put the spools together I simply lined up the bottoms and sewed background fabric to the tops of the spools so that they were the same height, arranged them like I wanted them and sewed them together. There are so many arrangements that could be done with these blocks. I'd sure love to see what you come up with.
One little note...for the shorter and wider spools I increased the width of the side strips so the spools would look proportional. Play with those kinds of things and make yours look like you want them to.

Any questions, just pop me an email.

Enjoy!