
No sci-fi here (that’s my husband’s dept–I don’t get it), just another yoyo quilt finished. I like this one. I used a lot of fabric scraps from other projects–linen from some pants, linen from a skirt, poly charmeuse from the last yoyo quilt, some quilting fabric from the diaper bag I made a while back, and some AWESOME blue cotton sateen I made an apron from as a wedding present for a friend (why didn’t I buy more of that fabric?–it was fabulous).
2920 is the number of wee tiny seams connecting all 1500 yoyos together. This time, just for kicks, I used Gnomey to sew them all instead of joining them with a blanket stitch by hand like I usually do. There are pros and cons of this.

Sewing yoyos by machine pros:
- It’s wicked fast–though not as fast as you would think
- It super saved my hands from the usual tendinitis flare ups that occur with yoyos for me because being the taskmaster that I am, I try to do too many in a given day
- A good old #14 needle tackles some nasty thicknesses of yoyos that otherwise make your hands pretty sore
Downside of sewing yoyos by machine:
- The quilt is smaller than usual because of the seam allowance. A hand blanket stitch joins the yoyos right at the edge so the seam allowance is MAYBE only 1/16″ as opposed to a scant 1/8″ by machine. Seems small but it’s not…but that’s one of those things that only I would notice–it doesn’t affect the appearance that much.
- It’s hard to manipulate the edges of the yoyos as you sew them so that they are totally flush with each other.
- You have to cut all the little machine threads so things go slower than you think they ought to.
- This is really the kicker for me and why I will go back to hand sewing on my next quilt: it’s just not as neat as the hand stitching. When you cut the threads it’s virtually impossible to cut them down to the ends of them without damaging the fabric. As anal as I am about thread clipping, this really bothers me, but not so much that I’m going to get every little one…I don’t need a repetitive motion injury from a yoyo quilt.
At the end of the day I’m glad to have this one done. I have one more to go for my circle of girlfriends before I’m done and I can make one that can stay in my house. The last one I’m looking forward to though–the recipient and the color palette I’m choosing for her because it fits her well is the one that also fits me the best. I’m looking forward to bathing myself in those lovely colors. More on that in several months, LOL!







inside view









