Yo-Yo ~ A Bucket List Quilt

 Most of us have a bucket list of quilts we dream of making someday, but let’s be honest, my quilty brains is like a squirrel on caffeine. This year’s mission to tackle UFOs has been surprisingly successful with seven finished.  Starting another long-term project probably isn’t the smartest move. Then again, if I don’t start them now, they'll just be on the list forever...so here we go!

A Yo-Yo quilt has been a lifelong dream of mine. I remember seeing one in a magazine as a child and imagining how wonderful it would be to have one on my bed. After years of collecting enough scrap fabric for some truly amazing scrappy quilts, the time has finally come to start creating the quilts I've always wanted. On August 16th, I officially began my Yo-Yo quilt (coverlet) journey, starting with the color pink.

It was so exciting to be working on the bucket list quilt. Take a close look at the image below.  See the crinkled circle?  That's trouble.  Heavily started fabric does not like being gathered around the edges, so I had to remove the stitching...BOOHOO.

 

What was I thinking?  I should have known this.  It would have been easier to hand wash larger pieces of fabric. All I could do was hand wash the circles. 

I was certain soaking the circles in a tub of water would help loosen the starch.  After an hour of soaking in a tub of cool water I carefully squeezed one circle a few times to help the fabric release the starch.  Then pressed it between two washcloths to dry it well enough for pressing.  After pressing, it was still stiff with starch!  

Plan B...use hot water for soaking...again the fabric was still stiff.  

Plan C... warm water, detergent, soak for an hour and ever so gently agitate by hand.  SUCCESS!  Albeit with some fraying but I now have workable circles.

To cut the circles I'm using these nesting longarm quilting rulers and a rotary cutter.  Cutting a 5 inch circle of fabric will make a 2.5 inch Yo-Yo.  Kind of big for a finished Yo-Yo and they would be impressively cute if cut smaller but let's be real, smaller Yo-Yo's means more work!  I'll be doing good to get the larger ones made in a reasonable amount of time...HAHA!

Most tutorials for Yo-Yo's tell you to turn the edge of the fabric by hand as you make each stitch.  I'm pre-turning the edges using Kay Buckley's Perfect Circles. 

I definitely think it's faster, at least for me. I tried the old fashioned way once years ago, and let's just say it was a complete disaster!  

Cutting the circles produced some odd shape scraps. I decided to cut the irregular shapes into usable squares.  1 inch, 1.5 inches, 2 inches, 2.5 inches and 3.5 inches.

The 1.5 inches squares were added to my long term Four Patch quilt box.  Which reminds me I should work on this soon so it doesn't become a UFO.  Again, I laugh, like I need to start a new project with so many boxes of projects.  Better to laugh about my crazy than to cry.

The rest were stored in this Charm pack storage box made by Art Bin.

It's temporary storage until I start producing more scraps squares from cutting for this project.

To make the yo-yos, I was using Lori Holt binding needles and Coats and Clark All-Purpose thread. Everything was going smoothly until I tried to bury the thread in the fabric...snap! The thread broke. That’s when I realized why most tutorials suggest hiding the thread tail in the folds of the fabric. But come on, a thread tail stuffed into a wrinkle could wiggle its way back out, right? I prefer my tails knotted, secured, and hidden deep inside the yo-yo, sealed with that satisfying little pop as the knot disappears forever into the fabric.

With just a few clicks and a day of waiting, I’ve got stronger thread and some impulsively purchased Milliners needles. Honestly, I couldn’t resist, John James needles are like the superheroes of hand stitching, always reliable and never letting me down. 

It's not that Lori needles are bad, I'm just a bit of a needle snob, I guess.  Milliners, also called hay needles or straw needles, are ideal for this project. Their extra-long design makes it easy to take more stitches at once. Below is a screenshot from the John James website. You can find the Needle Guide PDF here.

Some people swear by the Dritz Yo-Yo maker, but not me. I had one ages ago and tossed it straight into the trash. It took longer to make a Yo-Yo.  I’m fine with my stitches being a bit uneven. In the end, they all come together beautifully imperfect, just like me.

To create a 90 x 90 coverlet, I need over 2300 Yo-Yo's. My master plan is to make at least 10 Yo-Yo's a day while watching TV. If I stick to this ambitious schedule, I could have them all done in 230 days and ready to sew, theoretically finishing by this time next year. HA! Knowing how chaotic life gets around here, I'm giving myself a two-year deadline. So far, so good.  I started cutting on the 16th, made my first Yo-Yo on the 18th, and as of last night, I’ve got 73 finished. Looks like I’ll be doing some catch-up sewing tonight!

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