Wednesday, January 23, 2008

Yo-yo maker

In the early 1990's I bought one of those Japanese quilt books with antique quilts in it. This is the one that really caught my eye. Mrs. Mel asked me yesterday how this yo-yo maker works so here I have a series of one handed pictures, one hand holding the camera, one hand holding the maker. First you take a piece of fabric wrong side up, place center disc on it and snap into the bigger piece with that line matching one of 3 bumps on the bottom piece.
Trim around leaving about 1/8" seam allowance.
All trimmed.
Using your thumb to hold the seam allowance down start stitching through the holes in the order that they tell you to do it.
When all of the stitching is done, push the center disc out by pushing through the hole in the big piece.
Carefully peel the fabric off the disc.
Sorry about the blur, remember I'm one handed on the camera here. Pull up the gathering thread.
Voila! a yo-yo with perfectly even pleats that you can arrange going around all in the same direction.
A picture of the package, and again how the finished size compares to a quarter. This one is the "small" size. Now I need to get medium and large if I am going to make a masterpiece like that antique one.


13 comments:

canquilt said...

My friend Megan at Will Work for Fabric game me one of those and I haven't had a chance to use it yet. One of these day.
Lorre

Mulberry Tart said...

I just bought 2 of those and have not opened them yet. I am waiting for inspiration. Steph

Kristin L said...

I've seen that quilt somewhere before too. I love it, but can't imagine sewing together all those yo-yos.

imquilternity said...

Wanda, I'm glad you posted about this. It reminded me that I have been wanting to make a yo-yo quilt also. I saw one at Ethan Allan that caught my eye! I'm sure yours will be done before I even get around to thinking about it again! Be sure and show it to us when it's done....Terri

Anonymous said...

The new and improved yoyo maker makes it so much easier than when we were kids hand stitching around the edge of the circle. Again Thanks for another lesson. Please tell us how you would stitch all the yoyo's together to make a throw. As I remember we bar tacked them together by hand. But could we bar tack using the sewing machine?
J~MT

Anonymous said...

Haste makes waste~ I should have double clicked on photo of Maybelle Bonners yoyo quilt before sending off my comment. I see she has sewn them onto a backing. Which makes sense for a quilt. Although as as a kid we just made them and stitched together. Used as a dresser scarf. With definite spaces between each yoyo. Giving it a doily look.
J~MT

Melody Johnson said...

Great explanation Wanda. I get it now. Best wishes on making the quilt you have in mind.

meggie said...

Good tutorial. I need to get making some.

Candy Schultz said...

I am definitely getting one of those so I can make that yoyo quilt I put up a couple of weeks ago. I can do this while watching TV. These are fabulous and very inexpensive.

Perhaps there will be a yoyo revival with contemporary fabrics.

Timaree said...

Are they really easier than the old way of cutting the circle and stitching around the edges? And where do you get these? I like the quilt you show with all the different sizes of yoyos on one quilt. I haven't seen one like that before.

TB said...

A woman at the quilting retreat last weekend had one of these tools for making yo yos. It seemed to me to be a quite useful tool.

Anonymous said...

Hello, I came across a photo of this book which took me to your blog and beautiful work.
I am really interested in the Japanese book where you took this photo of the yo-yo quilt, I’ve tried searching by the quilters name Maybell Bonner but not been able to find anything. Are you able to send me the name of the book and publisher?
Thank you very much

Anonymous said...

Hello, I came across your blog via Pinterest. In particular I saw the photograph of the Japanese quilting book and was wondering if you would be able to send me the name of the book and the publisher? I love reading about vintage quilts and think the quilt in the photo is beautiful. Thank you for sharing it!