Passover Masks; I Couldn't Help Myself

Passover is April 8. With the world in the throes of the COVID epidemic, public health authorities and rabbis agree that people should stay home, and connect with farflung loved ones at the seder via Zoom, Skype, or whatever. 

I don't have any matzoh in my house yet - but of course, I always have plenty of matzoh fabric. So this morning, I broke away from making (somewhat) normal masks for friends and family; and I made these, just to make myself laugh.  First....

(I buy matzoh fabric here.)

The next mask covers two plagues: Frogs and hail. 

(The dots could also be boils and/or cattle disease; the black area could be darkness. That's five plagues in one mask!)  

The third mask, dancing skeletons, is good for the tenth plague, the death of the firstborn; not to mention the new plague we are enduring.

And finally, if your virtual seder guests don't see eye to eye on politics, send these to the loquacious ones in advance.

 BUT SERIOUSLY

• My easy pattern, which I used to make the masks above, is HERE.

• My roomier mask tutorial is HERE. 

• My resource page with hospitals around the country asking stitchers to make masks for them, and links to many more  patterns, is HERE. 

And whether you celebrate Passover, Easter, or anything else, please, listen to the public health experts; stay home; don't invite guests, except the ones you already live with. That's the best way to save the world. 

More Passover and matzoh fabric projects are in the word cloud on the upper right. 

Hanukah Gift Ideas: Paper and Fabric Judaica to Make, Sell, or Fling

Is it a bird? Well, birds are involved....

Is it a plane? No, more like a Frisbee - if you fling it, it flies, but not well enough for a game of  Frisbee golf. Wait, I remember! It's one of the yarmulkes (little Jewish hats) I brought to last week's artisan fair at my nearest synagogue, Pasadena Jewish Temple and Center!

I rarely do fairs - it's nearly impossible for a fiber artist to charge enough for the hours we put in. Nobody wants to pay $60 for a potholder. But someone I adore asked me -  and here she is, Ellen Dinerman, my son's kindergarten teacher (two decades ago), and an accomplished artist who makes extraordinary sculptural jewelry (sold here. No financial affiliation!)

I hoped the event would be a good opportunity to downsize my stash of Judaica seeking forever homes. My table:

Closeup of the top matzoh cover:

Underneath were more matzoh covers. Some, like this one, can do double duty....

If you don't want to use it as a matzoh cover, you can stuff an 11" pillow form into the back...

(The fun fabric above, featuring Maneschewitz wine and other Passover props is sold at 1-800-dreidel.com. They also sell the trompe l'oeil matzoh fabric.) My pile also included challah (bread) covers and mats, like this one, stitched from kaleidoscopically pieced fabric....

....and miscellaneous fiber art, like this wall hanging (now in my Etsy shop.) The Hebrew letters spell "Chai" for "Life!"

 Yarmulke section:

I make them from whatever fabric is feeling spiritual to me - starting at 12 o'clock and moving clockwise in the photo above, there's Mighty Mouse and Hebrew alphabet hats; a Harry Potter Bukharan style kippah; Pikachu; a hat pieced made from necktie fabrics; chile pepper fabric,  and way in the back, chess fabric. Closer:

The perfect kippah for a bishop! For shoppers who look at my hats and say, "Ha! I could make those myself," I heartily agree, and point to strategically-placed copies of my yarmulke-making book (which I sell online in paperback and digital form.)

Ellen gave me a second table for a craft activity with the Sunday school kids.

The supplies are for making paper hats that can also do double-duty - turned over they make festive candy dishes, and if you fling them with a twist, they can fly much better than the fabric version - comparable to a decent paper airplane. Patterns for these hats are in my OTHER yarmulke-making book, "Yarmulke-gami: E-Z Paper Fold Jewish Art Hats."  

I brought a stack of hat patterns for kids to cut out and decorate, printed onto cardstock. 

I made the patterns in my graphics program.  The round hat folding pattern has the Temple's sisterhood logo in the middle. Underneath the hat pattern is a pyramid-folding pattern.

I made about 60 copies of this page. I also showed off a row of samples.

Closer: One of them is a sponge-painted hat, folded into what I call a "Simple Star."

Here's another sponge-painted hat, this one folded in my "Dimple Star" design. Can you see the difference? This star is rotated so it's points don't line up with the darts. 

This basic hat is made from an acrylic painting on a piece of cardstock. 

The next is napkin decoupage. 

Here's my 'Diamond Star' folding pattern, made from textured scrapbooking cardstock.

Below left is a hat made from a map, and on the right, one from a scientific paper. The latter is colored and folded into my "Chickens Over Mt. Sinai" design. (also looks like a hamantaschen.) I twirled a decorative rose from the same paper.

This page was from a wildlife charity catalog.

I channeled my inner third grader to make a sample for the day's project. (The sequins were a test of whether a temporary glue stick holds them well. It doesn't.) 

Along with glue sticks, I provided the kids with lots of multicolored paper, stickers, markers, crayons, and Chanukah paper with dreidels and stars. (No sequins.)

The most popular supply turned out to be these: 

And here's a terrific hat made by a 6th grader who used them well! 

Plus several kids made pyramid gift boxes from my folding pattern.  Here's one I made as a sample:  

Good for holding gelt. Or, they serve as handle-free dreidels - put a Hebrew letter on each side, then toss it in the air. Of course, this being a tetrahedron - aka a "triangular pyramid" - when it lands, you have to wonder - which letter wins?  Three of the four sides are up! Maybe the one facing down at the table? This particular pyramid was folded from a foil coffee bag, with stamped Hebrew letters glued to each side. (I LOVE polyhedra!)

And here's a pyramid made and decorated at the fair by an authentic 6th grader.

Of course, with the pyramid theme, they may fit in better for Passover. My original idea involved covering the outside with brick fabric, and putting a frog inside:

But back to the present(s). I gave each kid three chocolate kisses to insert before sealing the last fold.  I didn't think of bringing candy until the morning of the event - and then, the only kisses I could find at the drugstore were packaged for Christmas, in red and green as well as silver foil. So we all had a good laugh about that. I wished I'd thought this through earlier, in time to buy chocolate coins to put inside. 

Thank you, Ellen, for inviting me to this fun event! I downsized my Judaica stash a bit, and had a blast shmoozing with other artists, shoppers, and creative kids!

P.S. I just saw the following fabulous wrapping paper at my local independent bookstore - Vromans in Pasadena. Wouldn't this make great paper kippot? 

Spring Holidays: Stuff Stuff! (My Patterns can Help)

Here in the relentless sunshine of Los Angeles, it's hard to determine the month. January? August? Looking out the window provides no clues. 

The only way to know for certain is to study supermarket shelves. And according to my shelves, it's been Easter and Passover since Valentine's Day, when heart-shaped candy disappeared overnight, replaced with bunny-shaped candy, and (just as sweet and cheap), Maneshewitz wine.

For stitchers, that means it's time to make stuffed things, and I'm not talking about turkeys or hams, because I don't know how to cook those. It's time to sew high-fiber stuffed Easter and/or Passover toys/table props!

First, if you celebrate Passover, may I suggest a tossable, lightweight, extra-dry, inedible matzoh ball. 

Yes, that describes my cooking, but it's also a fabric truncated octahedron,  easier than it sounds - baste fabric to 8 cardstock hexagons, and 6 cardstock squares, then sew them together. 

(For step-by-step directions, see my book "Stitch-a-hedron: English Paper Pieced Polyhedron Gifts and Accessories to Sew," in print at Amazon  or PDF download at Etsy.)

Similar to a polyhedron is a yarmulke, a small hat, with only four sides, also easy to make from matzoh fabric, using the patterns in my book, "The Uncommon Yarmulke" (sold in print or PDF on Etsy).

I don't sell matzoh fabric, but a vendor who does is Lauree Feigenbaum at 1-800-dreidel.com. Her trompe l'oeil matzoh fabric is extra-wide - a yard is more than enough to make multiple balls, hats, earrings, table runners, baby bibs, aprons, and of course, matzoh covers! (So your covered matzoh looks uncovered!?) 

If you or your friends celebrate Easter, speaking of sweet bunnies, you may need to make a zero-calorie gift rabbit from your fabric scraps. My stuffed animal method is fast, intuitive, and addictive. I just finished writing it up in a new 39-page booklet, "Spontaneous Stuffies: Small Improvised Animals from Precuts, Scraps and Jeans." The PDF (on Etsy) includes 20+ patterns, including the following small (about 4") and large bunnies.

Lambs are appropriate for Passover as well as Easter, so here are three. First, a snub-nosed lamb (or ram?):  

Next, a little lamb made from denim jeans.....

...and yet another lamb/ram from an cotton print - the tail is braided scraps. 

All are about 5" across. If you'd rather make something flat, here are some more matzoh covers, to get your wheels turning. (This one is Pokemon-themed.)

Detail:

The next one, made in 2004 (at the dawn of digital photography), is Exodus-themed: 

Want more spring quilty ideas?

- Send a fiber art greeting card. I stitched a bunch of Spring green egg-themed postcards, here. 

-  Find Passover and Easter baby bibs here.  

- Twenty more ideas for matzoh fabric, including quilted items, are on my blog here. 

Judaica, Old and New, With and Without Charlton Heston

Judaic studies professor Jodi Eichler-Levine wrote a beautiful essay about Judaica and "riffing on tradition," published in the Association of Jewish Studies' magazine, here. I'm beyond honored to be mentioned. Here's he full matzoh cover that she discusses.

And the detail that caught her eye:

Doesn't everyone put Charlton Heston on their matzoh covers? I blogged about it several years back, halfway down the page. Thank you, Jodi. It's amazing to be understood

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In tallit news: One disadvantage of being an empty nester is that my kids, who used to serve as fresh, unpaid supermodels, are no longer available. Fortunately, my fresh, unpaid supermodel husband steps in, if I plead and promise to maintain his anonymity. So here is an anonymous person modelling a tallit for a girl who chose the colors. the batik fabric, and the design, specifying that the stripes be uneven widths and uneven distances from each other. 

And here it is a few weeks later, on the actual gorgeous girl! (With her gorgeous family, also unevenly distributed.)

It's much more difficult to make stripes uneven than the same size. Closeup:

I outlined the letters with silver metallic thread, using freemotion techniques. The method is explained toward the bottom of this page. The Hebrew blessing for donning the tallit is made easily with my "atarah on a roll" pdf pattern, which you can download for free here. The quilted case, with the bat mitzvah's Hebrew name, is below.

Opened, from the back:

The matching kippah is very simple....

...and reversible....

(My not-quite-free book on how to make plain as well as complicated reversible kippot is here. )

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And speaking of complicated: Tallit-and-kippah maker extraordinaire Marilyn Levy used a pattern from my book to make this kippah, with the extensive machine embroidery that she does so beautifully: 

Find more of Marilyn's exquisite creations, including kippot and tallitot, at her website, here.

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And finally, moving from the sublime to the ridiculous, I must sheepishly admit that I do occasionally get commissions for bark mitzvah hats - yep, canine kippot. Meet Cody (and a feline photobomber): 

(What kind of a Jewish name is Cody? I forgot to ask his Hebrew name). I got a little fancy with fussy-cutting the four panels of Cody's headgear, for a kaleidoscopic effect: 

And the inside: 

It has a gold lame binding - what dog doesn't love bling? - and can double as an eyepatch. Not recommended for cats. The pattern is also in my book, here.