"Those are yo-yo's, baby."

I was chilling on the couch watching the new Jane Eyre yesterday when W got home from work, it is absolutely fabulouse (BTW). I want to own it, watch it every day and...well, you get the idea.

I was on the couch, watching the movie with a pile of these beside me:

W says, "What the heck are those? Tiny berets?"

I sigh, "No, they're not berets. Those are yo-yo's, baby."

W: "What the heck do you do with them."

Me: "Ummm, you make things with them."

I understand his confusion, they don't look like much, but check out this inspiration photo from one of my new favorite blogs, The Purl Bee. It's a mini quilt made of yo-yo's.

So gorgeous, right?! And such an improvement from the ones that they used to make in the early 1900's, those tend to look kind of frump and chaotic. They can also look country if you don't watch out. I really like the idea of grouping colors and textures in interesting ways like they did at Purl Bee,  so...I made a bunch of yo-yo's and put them together to make a pillow. There is not a single throw pillow in my house, that's the honest truth, and we do need one or two.

I'm happy with how it turned out, I wanted it to look handmade so I stitched it kind of roughly and used old-fashioned cotton ticking (a fabric I'm kind of obsessed with right now). I arranged the colors sort of dark to light in rows and didn't want the entire pillow to be covered with them. The stripe looks sort of clean and simple-good contrast for the froo-froo yo-yo's. Ha, froo-froo yo-yo's...