The Kaffe Fassett Champaign Orange Yo-Yo Quilt--The Official End

I finished this yo-yo quilt back in July after committing to finally completing it this Summer after working on it on and off for almost four years.  And during this time, the making of this quilt with the squares of Kaffe Fassett fabrics turned into another quilt plus a little extra done well before the yo-yo quilt was done.

I do most of my sewing in my studio which is located in the basement but I still have some supplies and projects that I keep upstairs in a cabinet in the dining room for when I want to watch TV.  Today while rummaging through the upstairs cabinet, I found an orange spool of thread, used for the yo-yo quilt, which finally could go back downstairs, thus signaling the official end of a project which I started in 2012.

Four years ago, I bought the Jumbo Clover Yo-Yo maker thinking these big yo-yos would look great in Kaffe fabrics and also a way for me to reduce the big stash.  And, since we travel by car, it was an excellent project for the road.  To prepare for this project, I first needed 9-1/2" squares which were trimmed after it was placed in the yo-yo maker leading to having a lot of triangle scraps that I needed to find a way to use them.  (Back to this later)  By 2013, I made hundreds of these Jumbo Yo-Yos and haven't  really decided what I was going to do with them.  I didn't want to sew them together like a traditional yo-yo quilt since I thought it would be too heavy and fragile, plus the only way to display it would be over the couch and in a house with four dogs, that would be a big no-no.

After searching Pinterest to find a way to use these yo-yos, I found a quilt in which small yo-yos made in 30's reproduction fabrics were sewn on a store bought plain white comforter.  This was a perfect solution, I just had to find the right comforter which turned out to be an orange, University of Illinois at Champaign orange, double-knit twin size comforter bought at Target.  All I needed to do was to tack down the yo-yo's where the comforter was gathered and in between the gathers.  After tacking down the first three rows of yo-yos, I realized they needed to be secured better so I ended sewing all around the yo-yos which resulted in making this quilt a forever project, during which I changed my hair style at least three times my hair color two times and gained a few pounds.  In order to sew down the yo-yos, the comforter needed to be laid across the dining room table, thank goodness it was long enough, and kind of cumbersome so I only sewed a few at a time and I had over two hundred yo-yos.  When I wasn't working on it, the quilt lived folded up on one of the dining room chairs and sometimes sat there for months at a time.  And the orange spool of thread lived upstairs during this time.

I finally decided to finish the yo-yo quilt this year after committing  in May to completing it in a UFO Challenge by July.  I had to sew 136 yo-yos in ten weeks, one row a week and I pretty much kept on schedule, even taking it on vacation.  I was so happy to finally finish it after almost four years when I made the first yo-yo.  I vowed never to come up with another crazy project like this one.  And I'm sure the orange spool of thread is glad to be back in the drawer with the others.

Now back to the triangle scraps leftover from the Kaffe squares.  While working on the yo-yo quilt, I found a snowball quilt on Pinterest in which triangles were sewn on the corners of various gray squares and when sewn together it created wonky diamonds, perfect for the scraps and some 6-1/2" gray squares.

This quilt was completed in 2014 and since I had a lot of squares and triangles left, they were given to Mary Etherington who has since made a table topper with the leftovers.

There were still leftover scraps too small for sewing but too large and pretty to throw them away so I made some fabric beads for necklaces and stilettos, again while the yo-yo quilt was waiting to be finished.

I still have a lot of little scraps from this project and others so I do have a scrap problem which is another post for another day.

Always on the lookout for projects to reduce the fabric and scrap stash........