The next day I had a visit from my two little grandsons who live in our town and needed a place to stay because the blizzard was blocking the road to their day care. Such a problem! I love having them visit and they wanted two new pillowcases which were not a problem to make out of my stash. While I was sewing, they were investigating the storage totes in my room and the next thing I knew they had two years of selvages heaped on the floor. I should have taken a picture as it was as good and jumping in a pile of leaves in the yard. They began to find pieces they liked and I decided to make little bags for them. I took jean pant legs below the worn out knees and covered them with selvage pieces they selected. Turned and seamed across the bottom of the leg and trimmed the top edge with rick rack and we called them "Ricky Racky Sacks". They were enchanted and I even gave them some nickels to put in the bags. Then we played "hide the thimble", a game I truly love and they got to take home the thimble in one of the bags. Oh the wonderment of a three and four year old!
Laying awake and thinking about the sewing room led to my creation. I asked my very talented husband if he could cut a piece of wood that would resemble a spool. We drew it up and measured my selvage pieces I had already created. 6 inches wide and 11 inches long. One of the spools is all the numbered parts of selvage where they give you the color guide. I just couln't bear cutting the top and bottom pieces out of brown cloth and then try to back it with something. The wooden back seemed so much sturdier and I intended to make these hang on the wall. Well, as always, Vince used his skills and imagination and thus we have created another "Pay it forward" gift. This one goes to my long time friend from junior and high school in Michigan. She has a blog about herbs and loves to garden so I used selvages with floral prints as her spool. What do you think?
This bottom one looks like it is more narrow at the bottom than the top but that is an optical illusion.