Making sure every scrap is used – a new project

Meet the Yo-Yo quilt. These were most popular from the 1920’s to the 1940’s. A lot of people will not have seen them before, I read about them and had a lightbulb moment.

At present we give all our scraps to our member Helen to make quilted bags and various other beauties. Helen’s feeling a little overwhelmed by all the scraps so yo-yo’s seemed to me to be the ideal ‘side’ project for us to do.

It also fits in with my bugbear about fabric waste. In the past – as every quilting aficionado knows – patchworking was done, not for show, but, for the very reason that people needed to keep warm and didn’t have the money for blankets. It was also a very good way to recycle clothing that may have worn out but still had good ‘patches’ that could be used. Yo-yo quilts became very popular during the Great Depression when the pieces of good fabric got smaller and smaller.

Yo-yo quilts were also the perfect transportable sewing project, all you need is a bunch of circles, a needle and thread and you were up and running.

We will be using 4” (inch not cm) circles for anyone who wants to join in.

Apart from practicality these little circles are things of beauty and so the women of Stitch 4 Kids NZ are going to make one – in our spare time haha. This will be made as a fundraiser, how and when to be decided. This is a long term project – no end in sight as yet 🙂

The pattern/instructions are on our ‘Get Involved‘ page.