Fabric Yo-Yo's: Easy Embellishments

I love a fabric yo-yo, and after surfing the web and other blogs I have realized that I'm not alone!  They are just cute and girly! And the best thing about fabric yo-yo's is that they are easy to make!!!  They can be used to embellish almost anything! I have used them to embellish hair bows, monograms, appliques, purses, skirts, pants...the list goes on.  You don't need a ton of fabric, in fact you can just use fabric scraps or fabric squares! Oh, and the fun part is you get to play with the design when layering and you get to mix and match with colors!!  So will you get crafty today and try to create one of your own?  Check out the tutorial below. Please forgive the somewhat blurred pictures! After two cups of "leaded" coffee my had was shaky!

Your prize at the end of this tutorial!!

The materials that you will need: thread, needle, anything that is in the shape of a circle for tracing (whatever size your template is you can count on your yo-yo only being half that size when it's finished), fabric pencil or regular pencil, scissors, and of course your fabric

Step 1: Place your fabric wrong side up and place whatever you will be using as a template to trace around on top of your fabric.

Step 2: Trace around your template, you should see a circle on your fabric like this.

Step 3: Cut ou the circle. You should have a piece like this.

Step 4: Get your needle and thread ready for sewing by hand. Hold the circle with the wrong side facing you. Fold over the outside of the circle just a little bit, probably 1/4 or 1/8 of an inch. But just eyeball it, no need to measure exactly! Sew around the circle using a basic stitch as you are continuoulsy folding over the edge.  See picture above!

Another example of the circle being folded over and stitched.

Step 5: Once you have stitched all the way around the circle it will begin to pucker up to the middle. You will make sure that the pocket of fabric not sewed is pushed back or out.

Step 6: Pull the leftover thread until the center of the yo-yo becomes tight. Work with the yo-yo by flattening out the back so that the "ruffle" surrounds the middle.

Step 7: Again, do a basic stitch to secure your yo-yo and tye it off on the back.

You are done! You should have a yo-yo that looks something like this!

I hope this tutorial is helpful! Please send me a message if there is something you do not understand. I will be glad to answer questions!! Here are some pictures of ways I have used the yo-yo's.