{ Get Your Craft On #2 - Fabric Yo yo }

Yo-yo wassup?? Want to make some little fabric rosettes today, also known as fabric yo-yo's?? Welcome to the 2nd installment of Get Your Craft On!

These little fabric beauties are so easy to make and can be used for lots of things - attach them to hair ties, clips or headbands, little girls tshirts or attach to pipecleaners for a fabric posie.

Ok so to begin you will need the following:

- fabric to make your fabric yoyo out of (about 15 cm square)

- a pencil

- needle and thread

- a button to match your fabric

- something round to use as a template, I used a saucer

- hot glue gun

Step 1.

Trace around your round template onto the fabric with your pencil. The size of the circle needs to be double the size you would like your finished yoyo to be. I used a saucer but you can use a jar, a cup or if you want something bigger a plate or bowl. Cut out your fabric circle.

Step 2.

With your needle and thread make a running stitch around the outside of your circle on the wrong side of the fabric, about 1cm inside the outer edge. If you want your yoyo to be quite precise and neat you should go try to go as close to the outer edge as you can, but I wanted mine to be quite shabby with the raw edges showing a little bit. Tip: the tighter you want your ruffles to end up the longer the stitches need to be. Work your way all around the circle and then stitch over your starting point. You should have something that looks like the above picture.

Step 3.

Gently start to pull your thread, holding the fabric in your two fingers as shown. The fabric will start to bunch and gather. Keep pulling and adjusting the fabric as you go.

Step 4.

You may end up with something that looks like the above picture - not a perfect yoyo. You can see it's a bit lopsided, what I like to do is place my finger on the centre and gently wiggle back and forth making the circle even and the 'centre' of the yoyo actually in the centre. You will have to push the fabric around a bit, adjust the tension of the thread until you get a more neat circle with even folds and ruffles of fabric. The back of your yoyo should look like the second picture above.

Step 5.

Ok now you have a fabric yoyo! Dependant on whether you would like a shabby yoyo with raw edges showing (like how I wanted mine) or a more neat yoyo you may want to fold the raw edges under and inside. This is when stitching closer to the edge of the circle earlier will help. Now it's time to get out your hot glue gun and your chosen button (I chose a wooden patterened one to go with my shabby chic yoyo). Carefully glue the button in place in the centre of your yoyo. You can chose a larger button to cover your edges or like I have done used a smallish one so you can still see the raw edges of the fabric.

And voila! You can make lots of fabric yoyos fairly quickly and use up scraps of fabric and odd buttons, in all sorts of different prints, sew them onto little girls tops or use your hot glue gun again to attach to plain hair clips. Have fun!