sewing & craft projects

During the 2020/21 Coronavirus pandemic lockdown, rainbows were been appearing in windows across the UK as a sign of support, solidarty, and appreciation for our NHS frontline workers, I designed this to make one of my own using up scraps of fabric.

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1. Decide how big you want to make your rainbow. I used a sheet of A2 paper, folded it in half and drew a freehand rainbow shape. Cut out and mark out each colour band on the template, I went with 6 (pink, yellow, orange, green, blue and purple, but actually added an extra red one to the outer edge when I'd finished). Start cutting up your fabrics, laying them out on the template as you go so you know they will fit. I cut my fabrics to the width of the bands but the lengths varied. I also kept frayed edges, selvedges etc, as I liked the unfinished random look. Each scrap of fabric needs to overlap slightly.

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2. Once you've built up your rainbow, pile up each colour out of the way. Begin with the outer strip and just loosely tack each strip together using the sewing cotton to create each colour band of the rainbow arch. I didn't do mine very neatly at all, but that was deliberate.

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3. Once you have all your coloured bands joined together, lay them together again, with each arch slightly overlapping. Join them together using the embroidery thread, I used Pearl Cotton 8 in a spacedyed rainbow colour, by sewing a running stitch.

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4. That's about it!, I stuck mine to our sitting room window using clear sellotape. It looks like stained glass when the light shines through. I could have made one using coloured paper but chose to make mine in fabric for dual purpose. When lockdown is over and life returns to some sort of normality, I can add a backing and a side panel/gusset to the rainbow and stuff it to make a cushion!