I have been collecting selvages for about 3 to 4 years now and have had a little help from my good friend Jeannie who has sent me her collection as well. I have been mulling over what I wanted to do with them and as soon as I would decide, I would change my mind and postpone the project. Recently, a group using the hashtag #selvageblockalong have been sharing selvage creations on Instagram so it spurred me on to put mine to use. I decided to make Whirlwind blocks with my collection.

When the Whirlwind blocks are put together, the background color creates a secondary pinwheel design. I contemplated the background fabric for awhile but settled on Kona Putty. I know it isn’t an exciting color but I wanted something with more color than white or off white so that it didn’t blend with the whites of the selvages. And I didn’t want the color to compete with any of the colors in my blocks. So, I think Putty works.

I’m grouping my selvages by color for each block. I am so happy to finally use some of my treasured selvages like the BasicGrey selvage above with all the little snowmen. Working with the selvages is sort of like scrapbooking my fabric history for the last few years (with Jeannie’s thrown in too!).

When I have enough selvages in a given color, I am breaking them down into shades of that color. I have a lot of blue selvages, for instance.

I have only made a handful of blocks so far but I have all my selvages sorted and am ready to make a bunch more at my sewing retreat this weekend. I will share when I get home!