About 5 years ago, another friend, Rita gave me some selvedge. Selvedge used to be a throw away item that the wool mills cut from cloth and discarded, but not any more because we makers found uses for it. The selvedge arrived in huge balls. Rita purchased it from a stall at Wonderwool Wales and I was over the moon to receive it from her. I had such plans, but just didn’t get around to using it. When I did have the time, I couldn’t decide whether to use it on the peg loom, on oversized knitting needles or some other process. Not until necessity ‘kicked in’ did I finally use this stash of selvedge. I needed new pad/cushions for my kitchen chairs. So now the problem was not what to make but how. This selvedge is thick, hard wearing, sustainable and natural. It is woollen cloth in a continuous strip.
Crochet! Using a very large crochet hook I started in the middle, 5 chains, join to a loop, several d.c. into the centre of the loop and carry on around adding two dc where necessary to stop the circle turning upwards until the pad/cushion was the required size. I used the same selvedge strip in 4 lengths to attach the pads to the chair by weaving in and out of the circular rows and then around the 2 legs and 2 back parts of the chair. Voila! Next, I made a square one. Only 4 more to go.
Have fun whatever you make.
