If you like selvages, you’ll be thrilled with this post on Karen Griska’s selvage blog. Absolutely heavenly selvages!

I’ve gotten a couple of questions about saving selvages, so here are the answers. 

1. Do you save both selvages, or only the printed ones?

I save only the printed ones, but I have read that some people save both.

2. How wide do you cut them?

I cut mine 1.5″ wide, because that’s what the Selvage Queen Karen Griska recommends. I find it works great. I measure 1.5″ from the finished selvage edge.

Another note: I saw fabric recently with a Mexican theme, and the little color windows were all shaped like tiny Mexican hats! Imagine how much fun we’ll have if fabric companies start making their selvages with artistic considerations!

One of the most innovative ideas out there right now has quilters creating with selvages. You read that correctly—people are cutting the printed selvages from their fabrics, saving them up and putting them into all kinds of sewing projects.

My first intro to the idea was from Karen Griska’s book entitled Quilts From the Selvage Edge. It’s full of fabulous projects made with selvages. Karen’s blog is wonderfully inspirational, with readers contributing photos of their own selvage sewing. (By the way, look for a fabulous quilt from Karen in an issue next year.)

There’s a bag pattern by Amy Butler that I love, I’ve probably made it at least a dozen times.

I recently made a selvage version for my daughter Holly for her birthday. (By the way, Holly is a writer with a great blog.)

Earlier this year, Karen made a color option for our “green” Jan/Feb issue, which was four blocks from a quilt by Mark Lipinski of Quilter’s Home fame. 

I’d like to give this piece (the four blocks shown) and a copy of Karen’s book Quilts From the Selvage Edge to a reader who submits a comment about how she has used selvages in a project. We’ll draw for a winner on Wednesday, July 1 and post the results at that time.

I finished sewing a Quiltmaker project recently (from gorgeous Red Rooster fabrics) and had a bunch of patches left over.

I decided to play around and see what happened. The most obvious thing was to sew the rectangular patches together.

I made three strips like the one above.

I knew I wanted to use this fabric for some sashing. I love those little birds!

I sewed them together and liked what was happening:

I trimmed it up (no stressing over the irregularities) and started auditioning other possibilities.

Eventually decided against the red polka dots. A little too intense.

Landed here. I have an idea for the edge treatment, but first I’ll quilt the whole thing as a rectangle.

I love quilt basting spray for small quilts like this. I use just a few safety pins. I treated this as a practice piece for machine quilting. I tried all kinds of different ideas and it was really fun and relaxing. Here’a side shot of some clamshell-type quilting in the borders. It’s freeform, no marking and no stressing. I used pink thread.

Now I take the plunge: freeform cutting of the edges into soft, flowing curves.

I love it!  It’s just what the doctor ordered. In my next post, I’ll share a great tool for cutting bias binding strips, because of course on a curvy edge, bias binding works best.

Over the weekend, I had the pleasure of visiting a very Swedish place in Nebraska called Stromsburg. I was there by invitation of The Quilters, a group of about 22 people from 8 different communities. A nice crowd attended the Quiltmaker lecture:

We had a lovely afternoon, even if I didn’t know what time zone I was in.

The Quilters were hosting a quilt show in the Evangelical Free Church, and it was unlike any show I’d ever seen. They used the church pews for display!

It worked really well and you could see the quilts quite nicely.

They used the front of the church for additional display space.

The big brown box in the photo below is the church organ!

Many thanks to The Quilters for their gracious hospitality.

I’ve decided to play along with Bonnie Hunter’s Christmas Lights mystery quilt–only I’m using my batik scraps. I’ve started my Four Patches with assorted lights and med/darks and I found enough of the green batik for the green print in the background below.

Next, I want to substitute purple for the black print #1 because I have lots of purple batik–not so much black batik. I think I can find enough magenta for the red tone-on-tone, but I’m not sure what to do about the gold tone-on-tone. I don’t have much gold-yellowish batiks, so I may have to substitute something else there. I’ll probably wait to have blocks done before I look for my border batik.

If you’re making Christmas Lights and have a blog or website, there’s a Christmas Lights button available.

Tell me, what’s your experience been with substituting colors in mystery quilts? Have you been happy with the end result? Leave your answer in a comment.

Carolyn’s recipe is good–I just happen to love my strawberry pie. So we thought strawberry pies sounded like a good challenge for everyone!

Here’s my Super Easy Strawberry-Key-Lime Pie recipe:

2 cups sliced strawberries
1/3 cup key lime juice
1 can sweetened condensed milk
1/2 tsp. almond extract (can substitute vanilla)
1 shortbread crust
whippped cream (optional)

Puree 1/2 cup sliced strawberries in a food processor with the lime juice. Add the sweetened condensed milk to the pureed strawberries. Pour the mixture into a bowl with the sliced strawberries and the almond extract; mix. Pour into the prepared pie crust. Refrigerate for two hours before serving with whipped cream (optional).

Keep adding your strawberry pie recipes to Carolyn’s post by noon on Monday, July 6 for a chance to win one of four fat quarter bundles from the Wildwood collection by Erin McMorris for FreeSpirit.

Wow–that was great participation and you’ve all suggested so many blogs to visit when we asked about your favorite blogs. I’ve been to many of your favorites, but there are new ones to check out soon.

So the five winners of Scraps & Shirttails are:

92: Ginny Worden

136: Heather

176: Maureen S

119: Robyn

72: Marian Sayers

Congratulations! You should have an email from me asking for your mailing address.

Don’t forget our Bonnie Hunter Special on sale now. You get 4 issues that feature Bonnie’s articles and patterns, including July/August ‘09 to start the Mystery series all for $10.99.

New: Are you making Christmas Lights? Copy the button below to add to your website or blog and link back to quiltmaker.com!

We had a baby shower here at the office yesterday for a member of our online team and his wife, and everyone brought a dessert to share. I brought one of my favorite summer desserts—Frozen Fluffy Strawberry Pie. As we were standing in line filling up our plates, June commented that she thought she had a better recipe for Strawberry Pie. Hmmm, this sounds like a challenge to me. We’ll let you be the judge! Here’s my recipe:

Frozen Fluffy Strawberry Pie

Combine the following 4 ingredients in a food processor:
3 oz. cream cheese
1 (14-oz) can sweetened condensed milk
2 1/2 cups fresh or frozen strawberries
3 Tbsp. lemon juice

Fold into mixture:
1 cup Cool Whip

Pour mixture into prepared graham cracker crust. Freeze 4 hours or until firm. Garnish with strawberries if desired.

June will post her recipe in a later blog. Do you have a recipe for strawberry pie that you love? Send us your favorite strawberry pie and the QM Test Kitchen will determine our favorite. No, seriously, post your favorite recipe. We’ll randomly select four names to receive a set of fat quarters from the fun, summery Wildwood collection by Erin McMorris for FreeSpirit.

Wildwood by Erin McMorris for FreeSpirit

We’ll select four names at noon mountain time on Monday, 7/6. Oh, and let us know which of our recipes is your favorite.

Are you a quilter inspired by photography? Just got this press release about a new contest.

“The Eye of the Quilter: Inspirations” will debut at the 35th anniversary of International Quilt Festival/Houston October 15-18, 2009. But instead of works of fabric, this special exhibit will feature photographs—taken by quilters—of something that “inspires” them. It could be a sunset, a child’s face, a landscape, body of water…the possibilities are endless.

Entrants can submit up to three digital photo shots for the contest, and winners will be on display in a special area at the fall Festival in Houston for the more than 53,000 attendees to marvel at.

Rules and entry form for “The Eye of the Quilter: Inspiration,” are available at quilts.com, under the “Contests” section. Deadline for entry is September 1, 2009.