How Does Your Rainbow Grow - a 3D art quilt

"How Does Your Rainbow Grow," 19"W x 8"H x 3.5"D, made by Pam Geisel, Oct. 2013

This art quilt/mini-screen took awhile to grow into the piece that it finally became. It started back in 2009 with just the purple piece which I made as a 4" x 6" quilted postcard. I usually make one or two dozen postcards at a time so this was just one of many postcards that was made that June. But there was something about this one that spoke to me, so I set it aside.
 

The fabric on the lower part was something that I had hand painted, and I had more of that hand-painted fabric although it wasn't all purple, it was also blue, pink, orange and yellow. So sometime in 2010 or 2011 I made the other five postcards using blue, pink, orange and yellow fabrics.

Sometime in 2012 I thought stitching them together to make a "screen" that stood up would be cool, but it didn't seem like enough. So I temporarily pinned them at the corners so they would stand and I set it on my bookshelf, waiting for it to tell me what to do next.

One day while working at Village Artisans, the local artist co-op that I belong to, I realized that one of our wood workers, Rob Liptak, uses large, thin spools to create some of his work. I decided that was just what I needed to support my piece so I asked if I could buy some uncarved spools from him.

The idea was ready, now how to actually make it work.

I butted the postcards together and sewed a large, loose zigzag sttich (using a pastel rainbow variegated thread) where they met.

Then I made sleeves for the five spools and made sure there was a half an inch of fabric on either side of the seam. I folded the raw edge under then fused to the postcard backs on either side of the zigzag stitch.

I removed the spools and machine sewed down the flaps on both sides of the sleeves. Because the stitches would show on the front I used a thread color that matched the front (you can see it in the third photo on both sides of the zigzag).

As always, you can click on any of the photos for a larger view.

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