Easy Diagonal 4-Patch Selvage Block - Keep Those Selvages!

let me just start this video by showing you my mess see all the batik that's what I am supposed to be working on today but instead I'm playing with salvages my beautiful selvages hi everyone it's me darlene i am here with a new video for you i am so excited about this one I am but I'm not because I want to show you everything but I don't have the time for that and I can't have this video be too long because I really have so many other things I need to be doing but I felt like sitting down and playing with some salvages I've been playing with them for a little bit I will show you some of the stuff that I came up with there's a lot to love about salvaged pieces I know most of you probably have seen stuff made with salvages or maybe you have even created some Salvage blocks but hopefully you know maybe I can come up with a few new things show you what I do what I figure out what works what doesn't so let's just get started first of all these are the selfridges this is just some of my selvages I regret that I've thrown selvages away for many many years but I won't be doing that anymore even if I don't use them all I might put them on eBay as penny auctions or whatever I don't know I think I could go through a lot of these any selvages work I thought I would not like the looks of selvages put together but I just love it I just love it and there's so many kinds of selvages now there's you know some with writing there's some that don't even have white like this one then there's these with the little fuzzy edges oh my god those are so sweet more fuzzy edges just all kinds of things these with the color eye color charts I don't know it's just letting you know all the colors that were in this fab Rick and sometimes their circles I had one today apples look look look it's apples oh my god well you know what it is the manufacturers now know that people like the selvages I've watched videos where there are people who buy fabric just for the salvages they're like oh I like this salvaged and they'll buy a piece just so they can have a piece of the salvage I mean I'm sure they use the other fabric too but they look at the salvages and you know manufacturers catch on to that of course you have the writing and just all kinds of things but I really love the fuzzies so when I started playing with these I just did some strip sets this is very easy no foundation needed you will see people using a foundation but if you add a foundation whether it's muslin which is what most people use and I have a muslin that is very lightweight finally I got the bolt today I got a bolt a little while ago but it was not the right kind so I have another one that just came and you want you know a lightweight fabric and you can sew on a muslin foundation like we do for like crazy quilting I'll link down below to my crazy quilt series do I have one I'm sure I do but I just laid my salvages together one on top of the other so you would take like this piece and salvage on this end and then you take another piece let me take one that's gotta sell that's showing let's go with the apples and you would just put that there's actually two there but I'll just show you you put that on top of that and then you sew down you know and it can get a little bit warped because there is no foundation and you just sew right on the very edge of the salvage and then you just keep piecing those that's very quick and easy and it's very good for quilt blocks because it's very flexible very light I thought the salvages them elves would make it stiff but they don't and I do a lot of cutting of like five and a quarter inch squares so I'm forever getting salvages this length so that's why you're seeing you know these pieces obviously if you have which is the right side this is obviously if you you know buy yardage and you want to cut your salvages off first you can and you really don't need much I even use selvages like this that only have a tiny tiny bit of the fabric showing because I can just put something right over there and some of the you know the words will still show I just love it so much so I have this piece I'll just show you a few of the pieces that I made this was just to play and I haven't done anything with them and I wasn't really paying attention as to whether or not well obviously the words will all be in the same direction because they're always like if you're reading it with a salvaged this way the words are not going to be upside down so I guess that works I never even really paid attention to that and I have this piece which you can see I didn't quite catch there so I would have to fix that and like this and like this and I haven't um I guess it's like this you know I haven't sown any together you know obviously it would make a little bit of a you know a little bit of a stiffer block but I will revisit this and we will be doing more of this because I really like the ease of doing it this way now instead of using a muslin I used no foundation instead of a muslin foundation we could always use the fusible are not fusible as a foundation we're going to be doing that today but I will say that the black fusible that I love so much stabilizer whatever you want to call it it's just glue on one side and I have done some videos using that it's really a pain in the ass for me to get that because it comes on a roll and I have to go and just say I want 30 yards and I you know say can we do it in like four yard cuts just because I don't want a big wadded up massive ball of 30 yards of that stuff and it's wide so it's hard when I get home I have to try to lay that out and cut it it's just too time-consuming so I'm going to be today using some other fusible that is not it's called featherweight but it's not as featherweight as the black that I love so much but this is a really good weight if you want to make tote bags or pillows you know like decorative pillows anything like that it could also be used in a quilt if you want a weighted quilt you know it's just uh it's just that much heavier but we're going to be doing that today so what I did is I wanted to play with the diagonal and I can't I think like an 8 inch square and even my longest selvages weren't really long enough because I don't really have a lot of long salvages probably the longest is like nine and a half inches for when I cut my fat sixteenths I take the salvages off those so I thought I'm just going to you know finish it like here is one and then I just put another one on top and when I was sewing this down I meant to go and so there and completely forgot same is here so you know I could always do that but you know I like it look look at the bird look at the white bird and so that's good you know and it's a little bit stiffer but it's a good weight for tote bags however I have a lot of short salvages so I thought I'm going to cut a small block and I want to do the diagonal on here and that's what we're going to do today and I'm going to show you how to do it assembly line style and I've already learned a little tip that I haven't seen of course I haven't watched too many videos about this but I'll just show you what I do and how to make it all very easy and let's get started I hate working in a messy space I really do I have one rule when I go to bed everything has to be put away and I have been following that rule and I like that rule but I don't know why it's such a mess yeah but it's okay um you can cut whatever size squares you want I actually will put some of this on eBay by the yard I'm not gonna cut the squares for you you can cut whatever size squares you want I don't have a whole lot of it but I will have a sum in case you want to grab some and play with it I'm gonna be making two squares with you I have two already made and then we're going to try making a four patch now I have not tried putting them together I just don't know you know how that's gonna turn out but we're gonna give it a shot so here's the deal oh yes another thing I learned especially on the bigger block that I showed you the bigger diagonal you know I thought it would be easy I didn't want it like too wonky because when I have a four patch I would kind of like it to look like a diamond it can be a wonky diamond but it's hard it was hard when I started getting toward the center because we start here we work our way up and as I was getting to the center I was really off by a lot so I make lines now I just write right on this make sure your glue side is up and I'm just going to draw a line on the diagonal and then I'm just gonna use the width of the ruler to make another line I just want a couple lines just to give me something to focus on and here too and let me do this one and then I find the easiest way is to have it on point pointing to me then I can see that my selvage is straight now for the corner we're going to start with small pieces of salvages I do have that for when I cut my 2 inch squares that I sell and I've never had any make it to eBay they they always sell out in my flash sales and fabric frenzies but eventually some of them will make it to eBay but see I have these little short salvaged is perfect for a corner so I'm going to take my little piece and I'm going to put it on the corner and I just want to make sure you know it's really covering the corner and then I want to put another piece here let's put this snail this that one's too pretty oh my god it's so hard to decide I hate that okay I'm going to go with this one and you really want to make sure that you're over the edge of your fusible okay always salvage side aiming toward you now this one is all one color that's fine I've actually seen some people use it the other way they flip it I don't know I have nothing against a colorful Salvage let's put one in there like that now let's put this guy so we can have all those little numbers not long enough all right so I have to do something else there let me find a longer Salvage I know I have some acorns and you know I don't lay it just like this because then that gives me just two little pieces of scraps so I lay it like this so that when I trim I've got this whole salvage for another project and make sure that you overlapped you know probably at least a quarter of an inch now can we put this guy oh yes with all the numbers probably just two more pieces let's put this right here and let's put this for our oh I don't like use fuzzies at the end can I get cut off oh no they won't look the fuzzies are going to be aiming toward me oh my goodness perfect alright we're going to press this most people use a dry iron I am such a steam freak that I steam everything alright that should be good and then what I do is I flip it and I'm going to just trim using where's my scissors Oh everything is so messed up using the fusible as a guide I about a quarter of an inch away from there and I just do that all the way around whoops that didn't get stuck my iron wasn't hot enough because of that stupid auto off that drives me crazy alright that should be hard enough now Oh an arrow now let me make another one just like that well not just like it you know what I mean so I'm going to take a little salvage I'm not going to waste these guys I'm going to put them to good use right there I just remember the salvage edge is always toward you and if you can't tell because sometimes it's hard just look at the other side and you'll see like the the needle holes and just make sure you cover the edges of the fusible drawing the lines really does help me so maybe it will help you hey let's do a corn again at the same color I had two colors of a corn fabric you sure I'm over this enough throw some more pink in not quite long enough we'll do this pink I think that's long enough and see this one has salvaged and then just a little bit of white I like that there this let's go this way well there's a little tiny piece right there we'll cover it oops salvaged toward me I have to remember that pressing now if I were making a project you know that I needed multiple blocks or a quilt I would do all my blocks and then I would go to the machine with all of them at once and do my chain piecing but I'm only going to be doing two with you today that's all I'm bringing to the machine with me oh my god I have so many ideas for this I can't wait to show you everything alright let's go to the machine with our two blocks oh they're pretty already here's one little thing that I did that helped a lot in sewing these for the big diagonal block I didn't do it and when you are sewing on your selvages you know the fabric can lift up at the end and it was just a little bit sloppy and I didn't care for that so what I did for the last two that I did which are the practice pieces that will go with these guys I started by putting my block upside down and I just sewed just to the edge of the fusible all the way around I mean probably like an eighth of an inch in doesn't really matter because it'll get caught in the seam allowance but just go ahead and sew around each block I just pivot and go I don't even take that off I just bring the next one and I do the same now if I had another block I would do the same to the next one and the next one and the next one depending on how many blocks you do yet if you're making a hundred of these maybe do ten at a time anyway whatever works for you now I'm still leaving that right there now I'm going to start sewing on my selvages so sometimes it's hard that you can see it you know they're all in the same direction and I'm just going to sew just on the inside this one happens to be fuzzy I don't want to just sew on the fuzzy part because that won't be holding it good so on this side of the fuzzies so let me just start with that I'm leaving it there I'm going to take this guy off and I'm going to send him through and you can put these very close together what the hell am i sewing okay I'm going to do this so I'm sewing right here and if I had another one I would send it through send it through and since I don't I'm just going to snip the one I have in the back and now I'm going to sew here my next salvage bringing it up close and again I would send the next one through but in my case I'm taking this one all the way over here this time and I'm going very close to the edge gee maybe I can show you it's gonna be hard because my thread is like a cream color but here let me see you can see hopefully you got to see that now I'm going on this one because the selvage won't fray that's the beauty of them so you don't have to do zig-zag or anything like that you're just stitching them down and now at this point you know I'm just gonna turn the block and I'm going to start going in the other you know on the other side it's just a little easier for me I don't know whatever works for you turning it go on this side there's my selvage right there it can be hard to spot them if they're not a selvage with white you can always just feel it see my finger goes under there so that's the little sucker that I have to sew down all right there we have any left here I do I do I didn't even realize my acorn strips are the two different colors that's cool okay I think this guy is done making sure my finger doesn't go under it look I missed one way over here this is for sure my new favorite thing another one there and you can use a contrasting thread because it adds like little you know lines of color like little stripes I didn't do it just because I was too lazy to change my thread but we will be doing it we'll be doing a lot with this okay I really think I've got them all this time make sure this one too yes yes yes yes all right back to the other table now all I do at this point is I just use my scissors because I have no room to cut because everything's a mess and I just trimmed next to the fusible using that as my guide it doesn't have to be perfect and that's what I'm doing right here if I had a bunch of blocks then I would probably use my rotary cutter how am I going to have time to do all the things I want to do ah okay let's look let's look you lookee see how cool that is I just love it I even love the needle holes pinholes whatever you call them that the salvages have not always my other two that I made earlier see I made two others so I have four now look at this one this was on the salvage a dog's face and then I picked a selvage up and it said the teacher's pet now I know what teacher's pet is a kid but look that's literally the teacher's pet so it's just so fun so fun so what I want to do is I want to point how do I explain it like this they're going in the same direction but I want like this corner in with this corner look at you have a fuzzy I have a fuzzy wuzzy salvage right there but here's one thing I didn't plan the blocks now see the writing is going that way this one's going that way I guess I would have had to have planned it well no can I do that yes what a dingdong I just have to turn it so that should work no matter what right that determines all right yeah see if you're looking at it you can read everything it's all going in that direction look look at that look at the diamond we made oh but I don't really want the acorns together like that so this way I could do and like that now I don't like that I see I can't be fussy like that but if you're making a lot of blocks you would have enough to play with that you could you know figure out how you want it but that is super cool don't you think I think how about if we put this one here and this one here okay now we have all kinds of different stuff going on that's very white oh my god I can see that I'm going to have issues with this okay let's move this and this all right I'm going with this I guess am I am I making another change here here I just really wanted this part to be all four different and they are now and my acorns are not in the same row okay we have a four patch that took a long time now huh this is the part that I hate to try because I don't want to it all up but I'm thinking if I sew that and fold that back it's just gonna be quite stiff the other thing I thought is if I sewed you know a decent seam allowance then when I opened it up after it was sewn but it's more work but then we could open it like this you know press it open and we could even I don't know if you can see what I'm doing stitch down on each one to make it more flat we could do that it really eats up a lot of the block but we could do that the only other thing is and I don't care for it in this you know design is you know to just top stitch but that's raw edge and I don't feel like doing zigzag here so we're going to have to go like this and so I think that's our only option let's go to the machine I guess I'm going to try just a quarter of an inch seam allowance so I don't eat up the whole block and we'll see how that presses out pretty sure I didn't do a perfect job with that you know that whole thing right there could be just fold it over I don't know I'm gonna try pressing it open all right I kind of like it that way pressed open now I would never be making an entire quilt with these little small squares so you know I could deal with pressing open it was really actually easier to do because of the the fusible it's more stable so it was really easy to do and you know to make a tote bag or something and you might say well what do you honey you make a tote bag well you can make your tote bag panels as big as you want front and back and then just make yourself a tote bag like now let's put this together there's my Center right nope because the the writing isn't the right way it wasn't that way had to be that way that's correct I don't know what I was looking at before this is correct so now I'm going to put these together and it's pretty easy to match up my intersection as best as I can doesn't have to be perfect we always know that and I'm going to so and I am going to make sure that my intersections you know that the seam allowances are laying the way they're supposed to I don't want any flipped ones because it's too thick to have it flipped now if I wanted to I could have tried sewing those down just to see what that would have looked like before I did it I think it would look really cool because it would add extra lines online God can I retire and just do this for the rest of my life I love this so much why why do I love something like this so much it's not normal let me press that open I can't even believe what a good intersection I did in it's okay if it's not perfect because it's already wonky because of the print but look I have to show off is there some threads going on oh it's my little fuzzy oh it got lost but look there's a little bit of fuzziness and then look at the back that looks nice and neat I think I did a good job I like this oh my god I really love it I do have I don't know the words aren't all going in the right direction like I thought I had it I don't know what I did I turned something around I don't care I don't think I would worry too much about which direction the wording is oh it works this way all the wording is correct all right it's just a matter of how we look at it see this way this way it's not some is this way this is down that's this way oh so there is like a right way and wrong way to put it how was it oh my god I'm making too much out of this you guys are sick of me now it's like this I like it very much I hope you do too and yeah just put up with my excitedness okay I have I have a very boring life this made me happy today thank you so much for watching oh I'll put this do I it's my first should I keep it I might put it up for a penny auction I don't really need this do i I have to let go I do I have to this will be up for a penny auction in a couple days I don't know when my next ones come out so when it's out I will put the link down below and you can bid on this baby alright thank you so much for watching bye you

Channel: Darlene Michaud

Views: 37,866

Rating: 4.8937502 out of 5

Keywords: Darlene Michaud, DarleneMichaud.com, Sanford Maine, sewing with selvages, selvage quilt blocks, how to use your selvage fabric, how to use selvages in quilts, how to make a selvage quilt block, darlene michaud quilting, darlene michaud selvage quilt block, easy method to sew with selvages, selvage scraps, how to use your selvage fabric scraps, how to use fabric scraps, how to make fabric with selvage scraps, how to make fabric with fabric scraps

Id: cD6AoO0aZwk

Length: 30min 30sec (1830 seconds)

Published: Mon Dec 23 2019