Selvage

We are going to begin with very basic sewing terms and help you build your vocabulary that is 'sewing language'.  Very often we use terms and expect folks to know what we are talking about. This post is about selvage and everything you wanted to know about it!  Selvage is the finished edge of the fabric, this is usually a lighter color than the rest of the fabric. It will often have the designer or manufacture of the fabric, sometimes a year, and colored numbers.  You can see this fabric is a Jo Morton fabric and Andover fabrics is the manufacturer.  Sometimes selvage has tiny holes in it,  these come from the manufacturing process.  There are patterns of items made strictly from selvage, but most times, the selvage is cut away or used in the seam allowances.

Here is the bolt of fabric, the fold is at the top of the picture, and the selvage is at the bottom.  Hope this helps with your selvage questions.