Solution for an ugly tuck-in selvedge

[Barb T]

I was laying out a kilt yesterday and discovered the ugliest tuck-in selvedge I've ever seen on a piece of kilt fabric. The fabric is double width, and one selvedge is fine, but the other looked like this on what I consider to be the right side of the fabric:



For some reason, the loom didn't cut off the turned threads flush with the fabric, and the cut threads formed a 1/4" fuzzy fringe all along the length of the fabric. One solution would have been to make the kilt with the wrong side up - for those of you who don't make kilts, this isn't the end of the world, because, unlike printed fabrics, tartan looks the same on both sides. But, traditionally, kilts are made with the twill line slanting from right hip to the lower left corner of the apron, and that would have put the fuzzy selvedge on the right side of the kilt.

So, I trundled over to Walmart and bought a $5, battery-operated fabric shaver with a small head (this little cheapie one has a head only about 1 1/2" across). I put the tartan over my knee to curve the fabric and make the fringe stand up a little, and I shaved the fringe off. Didn't touch the tartan at all.

You'll see the difference below!! On the left, you'll see the shaved part. Not only is that awful fringe gone, but the black stripe that was hidden by the fringe now shows. I left some of the fringe on the right so that you could see the difference.



As I was shaving the tartan, my husband looked over and said, "I can see an XMarks post coming...."