What to do with selvages

Have you ever come across projects using the selvage edges of your quilting fabrics?  I've seen a few, and started saving the edges.  And saving, and saving.  Until I had two gallon size Ziploc bags full and still no idea what to do with them.  Time to dive in!

First I sorted the strips by length.  That made it easier to overlap them and top stitch them together into strips about 6.5 inches wide.  Next, I cut those into squares using my 6.5 inch ruler.  It was all pretty arbitrary, but that's the size ruler I had on hand, and things just seemed to work out.

My layout inspiration came from Bonnie Hunter's pattern "Basket Weave Strings", one of her free patterns.  The alternating whites and colors of selvages worked like a dream!

Some things I learned:  

1)  When cutting selvages make sure you keep about 1-inch of the print above the white strip.  You will lose 1/4 inch in the overlap seam and less than 1/2-inch of color showing looks too skinny.

2)  Lights and whites don't work very well unless they have a definite print.  It just all blends together as one big white strip.

3)  Start each strip set with a selvage that is all color and at least 1.25 inches wide. (see the green edge strip in the photo above)  A white strip just gets lost in the seam allowance and you get such a tiny white sliver showing that it looks funny.

4)  When sub-cutting strips into squares, re-adjust and square up every couple of cuts.

5)  It is not necessary to use any stabilizer under the strips.  I just overlapped the white finished edge over the colored edge of the next strip and top stitched them together.  A little spray starch might have helped keep things square, but with only 6.5 inches width, it was easily manageable.

Basket Weave Selvages  60x60 inches before borders. 
Sorry the photo is so dark.  We've had a lot of rainy days here recently.

Here's the top.  The setting triangles are a very dark green and it still needs a couple of borders - yet to be determined.  

This was a LOT more fun than I expected!  You've got to try it!