Richard Of York Gave Battle In Vain

I've been working away for a while now on a Crafty Project. I know, who'd've thunk it? But the lively and lovely Trashalou emailed me one day and asked did I want to join a rainbow swap, and I thought why not? One, I like rainbows, so I thought I could come up with plenty of ideas. Two, I've looked on enviously from the sidelines (so to speak) as crafty bloggers everywhere either made or received gorgeous things in blog-swaps. I wanted to come to that party.

I love rainbows. I love working through the spectrum, I love saying roy-ja-biv as my little memory aid (RedOrangeYellowGreenBlueIndigoViolet). So I used the idea of those colours, in that order as the base for all my projects.

My first item was a book cover. Version II of this one. I used a much easier plain black fabric to make the cover and embellished it with rainbow felt.

RedOrangeYellowGreenBlueIndigoViolet


My second item was bunting. There is something so cheerful about coloured flags hanging above your head. I'd seen someone else's bunting and they'd made it with pinking shears and stitching over the top which I could see meant it would be very quick and easy to whip up, but I didn't really like how it looked. So despite being a very novice at this sewing thing I went the whole hog & sewed my triangles together inside out and then turned them. I had quite lot of help, firstly talking through the mechanics with Jenny, who also assisted with stash (she runs her school's fete craft stall and everyone gives her fabric so she was quite glad to give some of it away), and then from Nell (and spasmodically the kids) who kept me company me as I sewed a billion triangles, and was very good with suggestions and advice and turning the triangles out and ironing them.

RedOrangeYellowGreenBlueIndigoViolet


I also folded some masu boxes in rainbow spectrum and then nested them. I'm not sure what practical use they'll have but it seemed a pretty, if frivolous, idea. I used them to hold a bit of trim which said celebrate in rainbow colours.

RedOrangeYellowGreenBlueIndigoViolet


Then I put together a Rainbow cd...

RedOrangeYellowGreenBlueIndigoViolet

My last great project, and possibly the one I'm proudest of, was the rainbow apron. Cherub's adorable teacher let me take some buttons from her class stash so I had a rainbow spectrum of cute buttons. With these I decided to use the rest of the black fabric and a fat quarter in rainbow stripes to make an apron. I took my ingredients (is there a better crafty word than that?) and my ideas to Jenny, and she said it was good and would work and she supervised me and advised on correct ordering of sewing. But the apron is my own (very simple) design and is therefore my favourite of my crafted children.

VioletIndigoBlueGreenYellowOrangeRed :: mirror shot so it appears reversed.




Here's the finished products just before posting. I was giving to the lovely Jan from Sewjourn, and she emailed me the instant she received them with kind words.