Quiet Book Series: Page 7 - Rainbow Counting - Learn Colors and Numbers

by Hannah Garnier

Rainbow Abacus with Beads Quiet Book Page Pattern & Tutorial

Hello! This is Hannah from Homemade Heartfelt with a brand new quiet book page tutorial for you to sew with the lovely felt from The Felt Store. This page features a rainbow stretching across the page from cloud to cloud, but it’s also an abacus with beads on rainbow colored ribbons. Children will not only learn the colors in rainbow order, they can also count, add and subtract using the abacus if you prompt them to slide beads from one side to the other. Once you’ve made an abacus like this, it would be fun to customize it on other quiet book pages to include whatever your child’s interests are with beads of all kinds. To find out more about using an abacus with children, feel free to watch this video: Preschool Abacus Lesson

Rainbow Bead Quiet Book Page
Size: Approx. 9 x 12 inches
Difficulty Level: Intermediate

Supplies to gather:

Downloadable PDF Pattern:

Quiet Book Series - Rainbow Bead - Template

Instructions:

  1. Print the pattern on an 8.5 x 11 inch paper, with narrow margins; you might want to enlarge it up to 10% since the felt sheets are 9x12 inches. Cut out the pattern and pin shapes onto the white felt or print the pattern on freezer paper and iron onto the white felt. Cut around the edges. Unpin the paper pattern or peel off the freezer paper pattern.
  1. Lay out the clouds on each corner on their reverse side. This entire piece will be flipped over before being sewn. Begin building the abacus in reverse order. Cut your ribbons to length so they stretch from cloud to cloud with extra room to pin. As you pin the ribbons to the clouds (not the blue felt), string on the pony beads in the coordinating color, beginning with red on the right, with 10 beads strung on, progressing to the left and ending with white which has only one bead. Pin carefully and space the ribbons as evenly as you possibly can.
  1. Once you’ve pinned all the ribbons and strung all the beads, hold the clouds and flip the abacus over. Pin the cloud to the blue felt background.
  1. Now cut three additional lengths of ribbon for the three buttons. I initially chose long lengths but later decided they were too long and knotted them together – you can choose whatever length you think best. I simply tied the buttons onto them and will return to finalize later. Pin your accent beads and ribbons underneath the upper cloud.
  1. Select a small length stitch on the sewing machine. Stitch around the scallops of the clouds carefully ensuring each ribbon is also getting stitched on and sandwiched between the cloud and the blue felt background. Do not stitch the corners of the clouds yet.
  1. Lift up the corners of the clouds and remove all your straight pins. Trim any ribbons that will be too long to tuck inside the layers of felt. Sew down the corner of the clouds, using a back-and-forth stitch to secure the start and end of your sewing. Trim all threads.
  1. Here you can see where I knotted the ribbons with the buttons on them. Yours may be different. Trim the knotted ribbon from the backs of the buttons (or beads) and apply a strong glue to the knot. Let dry.
  1. Sew other quiet book pages onto the backs before attaching metal eyelets. For more on assembling pages, please see one of my previous tutorials: Quiet Book Series: Page 4 - Birthday Party

I ended up adding this quiet book page to a personalized quiet book I made for family and gifting it to her for Christmas. You might recognize the overalls page from my previous tutorial and if you want to make your own cover you can follow my tutorial below. Feel free to check out the other pages (& cover) in my "Quiet Book Series":

If you make this page, please post it on social media and tag both @homemadeheartfelt and @the_felt_store – we’d love to see your work!

Happy Crafting!

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