18 Surprises from Modern Quilts: Gaping and Shopping at QuiltCon 2016

Are you into Modern quilting? It's a new movement with roots in 20th century modern abstract art; in African-American quilting (especially Gee's Bend), and in art quilting.

Just because a quilt was made recently doesn't mean it's Modern-with-a-capital-M. Modern quilts often have one or more of the following traits:

•  A sparse appliqué or pieced design
•  Dense quilting, often in straight lines, usually by machine
•  Abstraction
•  Solid fabrics, and/or trendy prints, often large-scale prints
•  Low contrast
•  Lots of neutrals: greys, whites, beiges, etc.
•  Improvisational
•  Assymetrical
• Conceptual. A Modern quilt can be much more than the sum of its (relatively few) parts. 
• None of the above! 

Yes, some Modern quilts break most or all of the preceeding "rules". It was fascinating to see the  assortment last weekend at The Modern Quilt Guild's annual show, QuiltCon West, 2016, in Pasadena, California.

My friend Saraj joined me for the show, flying down from Northern California. We gawked and shopped for two days, knocking ourselves out. Here are some of the delightful surpises we encountered, from the juried show and the vendor booths.

1. The movement is huge - Since the founding of the Modern Quilt Guild (MQG) in 2009, the Guild has grown to 10,000 members!

2. The enthusiasts are diverse - The show was thronged with people of all ages, from tattooed young women with piercings and assymetric haircuts, to new mothers (and fathers) pushing newborns in strollers, to not-visibly-tattooed mature women with symmetrical coiffures (such as moi). The mix of ages (and hair) created a fantastic vibe.

3. There are Modern groups around the world - The show featured dozens of twin-size group challenge quilts, made by MQG chapters not just from the US, but also Australia, Brazil, Canada, even South Africa. There are more than 150 MQG member guilds!  Here's a locator. Learn more movement history here.  Below is the Pittsburgh guild's submission:

(Read about it here.)
Next,  Calgary's  teepee-themed quilt, with its makers before quilting...

Below, how it appeared at the show.

Read about the Calgary quilt here.
The Seattle Modern Quilt Guild's entry was a jawdropper:

4. The winners were unexpected. The show's prizewinners are on this page. The grand prize winner was a quiet, mostly white, quilt with a few small cross-shaped patches made from torn  denim jeans. It was a memorial by quilter Melissa Avirinos to her tragically deceased brother.

Below is the machine quilting-category winner: Molli Sparkles and Jane Davidson's "No Value Does Not Equal Free."

Yup. That's it. It's pieced from 36 different white squares. It's a pun and a comment on how much it costs to make a quilt, even a quilt with no value differentiation.  The "no value" title is heavily quilted into the background. Molli explains the quilt's meaning, shows a cost worksheet, and offers construction details on this page.

5. One big concept is empowerment.  When I walk around art or traditional quilt shows, I often find myself thinking, "I should retire from quilting right now, because I could never make something that incredible!" Have you ever felt that way? I thought so. By comparison, many Modern quilts seem...well.. doable! No wonder young women are drawn to them! If you're 6 months pregnant and start on a Modern baby quilt today, you will probably finish before your baby hits kindergarten. Here's an elegant, almost-hexagonal "Bullseye" quilt by quilter Vicki Reubel:

The bullseye actually has 7 sides! When you look closer at the quilting, you see it's not so simple. Check out the closeup here. If you're making a baby quilt, you could use the same basic idea - one giant shape - and vastly simplify the quilting. 

On the other hand, another hexagon-themed quilt at the show defied most of the rules at the top of this post. It's in a category of it's own! The quilt was made by Wanda Dotson, a wonderful quilter who blogs here. 

6. Gwen Marston is a rock star. Read about Gwen's impact here, She coined the term "Liberated Quiltmaking," which is in the title of her two collectible books. It was a huge thrill to come across Gwen in her exhibit area. Following her around the room were mobs of starstruck quilter/paparazzi, snapping pictures and calling"Gwen! Gwen! Smile! Gwen! Stand here! Stand there!" I didn't know what to stare at first - Gwen-in-the-flesh, or her iconic quilts, which I have spent so many hours over so many years staring at in books and online. Here's a bit of both:

I couldn't resist thanking her for sharing her work and ideas with the world.

7. Speaking of strong women - We found Hillary. Not campaigning at the show; Ms. Clinton was depicted in the "Hillary Quilton" by Diana Vandeyar (mentioned in Saturday's LA Times, here.). Here's the quilt with Saraj, who is a marathon runner (so, like Hillary, she also has mega-tenacity).

(I didn't see any other quilts about any of the other Presidential candidates.)

8. Music Inspires Modern - Moda Fabrics had this stunning David Bowie quilt in their booth. It was made by Holly of This is what I Do.  (The link has a much better picture of it.) 

Stacie Dolan from Massachusetts made the next whole-cloth machine-stitched quilt, a tribute to Prince. It's densely machine-quilted with text.

9. There were powerful social and political statements. The LA Times coverage also discusses the next two quilts, and other statement Modern quilts. Read the article here. The first one was made by Chawne Kimber.

The second one is made by Karen Maple.

(Yes, the word "black" is backwards in this thought-provoking quilt.)

10. Speaking of text, there was a fair amount. Here's another of my show favorites, also made by Chawne Kimber. This quilt defies many of the norms of Modern quilting. It's high-contrast, high-value, colorful, crowded, and mostly symmetrical:

The caption along the bottom reads,"In essence, I am a sophisticated cotton picker." What a great use of text, a terrific sense of humor, and a bitterly ironic allusion to African-American history, and the history of the cotton industry. In short, it's brilliant.

11. No BeDazzlers! - Modern quilters don't do a lot of embellishment. I didn't see ANY beads, buttons, hot rhinestones, nuthin', not on the quilts, and not in the vendor's booths.

12. Sew many zippers! - Modern quilters must be making a lot of handbags. We saw purse zippers galore in the vendors' booths, but not on quilts. The zippers came in all shades of the rainbow, especially neons. I was particularly struck by the designer zippers at Micasroom.com including lace zippers, print zippers, and fascinating zippers in which the interlocking "teeth" are giant colorful spheres.

13. Similarly, batiks - Many vendors sold batiks, but I don't recall seeing many/any in the show quilts.

14. Abundant kooky animal prints - Saraj found this groovy badger fabric, in several colorways. There were also vintagey polar bears that I should have purchased.

Not to mention Octopii. The universe twisted my arm until I bought a yard of this Charley Harper organic fabric (It had better be organic, because it cost $16.50 a yard. Ouch! That price was not unusual at this show.)

[Update, 3/3/16: I made a handbag out of it:

]

15.  Similarly, Japanese fabrics - Scads of vendors sold Japanese fabric, from traditional to artsy. There were also Japanese purse patterns; notions, sashiko threads, mysterious marking pens whose packaging I could not read, etc. But I didn't notice any show quilts with Japanese motifs. Saraj bought  more than enough Japanese fabric to cover my sewing room floor. Here are a few of her selections:

I loved these traditional-motifs-plus-animé-cats fabric: 

16. Moda makes a fabric with fake selvages -OK, you have to be a stitcher to find the following hilarious. In one of the vendor booths, I spotted this bolt. It's got all the same stuff you see on selvages, but blown up and all over. Modern quilters enjoy making things out of selvages. (See my selvage-and-denim pillows here). With this fabric, we can make bigger things. 

17. Robert Kaufman's color of the year is, you're kidding - This yellow is their Kona color of 2016. Their booth was entirely decorated in this shade of yellow, which was challenging to gaze at for more than a few seconds.

I resisted buying a pack. However, it often happens to me in my quilting journey that I start out loathing a new trend, and then become obsessed with it. So I won't be entirely surprised if I find myself making a Modern quilt in this color. any minute now!

18. The quilts of Molly Upton - Molly was a fiber artist who lived from 1953 to 1977. She worked with garment and home decor fabrics - velvet, corduroys, polyesters, stuff that quilters today would sniff at. Upton turned dross into gold, creating innovative pieces that foreshadowed the art and modern quilt movements by four decades. Learn more here, (underneath the info about Gwen), Below is one of her category-busting pieces from the show. It's sort of  a cross between Chagall and Ann Brauer. Here's a wonderful appreciation of her work.

So that's my report from the front lines of the Modern movement. Did you go to QuiltCon? What surprised you? Have you made a Modern quilt? Are they growing on you?

UPDATE: Part II of this post is at http://gefiltequilt.blogspot.com/2016/02/quiltcon-2016-20-more-pieces-of-modern.html.

UPDATE, 2/25/16: A deep look, with behind-the-scenes stories, from Quiltcon is at Sewingreport.com:  http://www.sewingreport.com/2016/02/quiltcon-beyond-the-obvious/.
UPDATE: 2/27/16: Fabulous shopping at the show: http://catherineredford.com/what-i-brought-home-from-quiltcon/?utm_source=wir&utm_campaign=qd-brc-wir-160227&utm_content=823633_QR160227&utm_medium=email. 

Dye-Bleeding in Quilts: A 5 Point Plan to Save Your Project and/or Sanity

Nothing focuses a quilter's mind as much as bleeding, and I'm not talking about the pins, needles, or rotary cutter-inflicted kind: I'm talking about color.

Discovering that a fabric in your just-finished quilt has bled into its neighboring fabrics is an awful moment. Not even stomping around the house yelling "J'accuse!" at yourself will help.

The only thing that will help is fixing the problem.

That's what I learned a couple of weeks ago. Spoiler alert: This story has a happy ending. thanks to Synthrapol. If you've arrived on this page due to a dye-bleeding emergency, and you need the solution immediately, scroll down to "Here's What Worked for Me" near the bottom of this post. Remain calm.

For those of you who are not currently frantic, it all began because I have been working  on a series of quilts using my batik scraps, a heap collection 20 years in the making.

One of the problems with working from elderly distinguished scraps is that I forget crucial facts such as why the bleep I ever bought that fabric, and whether the dye in it runs like crazy.

I did find an enigmatic note from my younger self pinned to a group of dark blue scraps. I had written: "Not colorfast but big piece is." ? To play it safe, I didn't use any of those pieces. (I am guessing "the big piece" meant the one on my shelf rather than in the scrap department.)

But I did use other dark blue scraps that were not attached to that group without thinking twice. Plus there were pieces from a magenta-and-purple batik yard that I had no memory of ever causing bleeding problems, so I didn't even bother checking.

Construction  went well, until it was time to block the quilt - wetting and shaping it, then letting it dry. I soaked the quilt in cold water in my washing machine, spun off the excess, then pinned it to a multicolored striped bath towel, straightening the sides.

This is a hashtag quilt. Can you see the hashtag?

Late in the evening, I was admiring it. "Gosh, I like this quilt. I really like it. Come to think of it, I almost love it. To celebrate my growing affection for it, I would now like to break off a modest piece of dark chocolate and gnaw on it...but...but...wait...what? WHA???...oh no...Oh No...OH NOOOOOO!!!!"

I was too upset to take pictures, but here's a dramatic Photoshop reenactment of the stain that had appeared on a centrally-located white block:

There were some purply spots, plus a reddish brownish spot. (They weren't actually as round as my Photoshop blobs.)

Also, in different parts of the quilts, there were some more streaky stains. Here's another recreation (circled in white with Photoshop):

Both stains were next to two different dark blue batiks,  In addition, the magenta pieces had soaked pink to the back, though fortunately, not on top.

I tore through the eight stages of grief: Shock, Denial, Guilt, High Blood Pressure, Anger, Stomping, Self-recrimination in English and high-school French, and finally, the Internet.

Quick, search terms, what do I use? "How to stop bleeding?" No that's about tourniquets, clotting and xarelto/coumadin. "How to stop color bleeding?" What does that even mean? "How to stop dyed colors from leaching?"  Those are dyers' sites. Plus, is leaching even an American word? Wasn't Cary Grant's real name Archibald Leach?

Mostly, I found sites that talk about laundry, usually a red shirt that turns all the family underwear pink.

I finally honed in on useful key words. "Fix dye bleeding in quilts."

There I discovered a world of desperate home chemistry experiments. Potential remedies included: Dawn; Oxiclean; a pantry's worth of salad dressing ingredients (vinegar, lemon juice and/or salt); Kirkland detergent, and above all, Retayne and Synthrapol. One quilter basted 96 Shout 'Color Catcher' sheets to her stained quilt, I kid you not. But whatever the remedy - it didn't always work.

The Difference Between Retayne and Synthrapol
I know about Retayne and Synthrapol, and I keep a bottle of each in my laundry area (well out of reach of children.) R & S are to dye what clotting agents are to our blood, and or, one could argue. anti-depressants to our brains. In completely different ways, R or S (or both) can save your life, your quilt, and your sanity.  Even if you don't have them in your house you should know where you can obtain them quickly. Some quilt shops and yarn shops carry them. Online, go to dharmatrading.com or prochemicalanddye.com). They're cheap.

Retayne is used by careful quilters BEFORE cutting or sewing a piece of fabric that looks suspicious. If, for example, after buying that lurid magenta fabric, I had tested it, I would very quickly have realized that the dye runs. Then I would have washed it with Retayne, and tested it again to see if the Retayne worked. Some say that it can change the look or hand of the fabric, and I do think it causes a bit of dulling and lightening.  (More about Retayne here.)

But I hadn't done that. And once an untreated, bleed-prone fabric has been cut up and pieced into a quilt next to other fabrics, you DON'T want to use Retayne. It will not remove - AND MIGHT EVEN SET - the wandering dye, including dye that has migrated to neighboring fabrics.

After it's stitched to other fabrics, you need Synthrapol.

Synthrapol  might either (a) fix your problem or, (b) not.  It takes away excess unset dye, and theoretically reduces the bleeding the next time the quilt is washed. Since the purple blobs and streaks on my quilt weren't chemically-set, the theory was that the Synthrapol could float them away.

Back to our story.  I read everything I could find on the web and finally decided not to make any sudden moves. I waited until morning to call my favorite mental health hotline, a.k.a. Dharmatrading.com's customer service department, who helped me through my dupioni silk magenta leaching emergency last year. (Yes, this happens to me quite often: )


The Oxiclean Detour
The nurturing young woman affirmed that indeed it was too late for the Retayne, and time for the Synthrapol. As a last comment, however, she also tossed off that she had heard about one person who said Oxiclean lifted away the stains caused by errant dye, but that was only one person, and that person had DABBED the stains with Oxiclean.

Oxiclean-dabbing sounded less radical than the Synthrapol-bathing, (I wasn't thinking clearly), so I mixed up Oxiclean with water and carefully dabbed the navy stains. Indeed, about a half hour later, they had faded, but not vanished.

However, the Oxiclean didn't seem to be doing much about the stains on the light blue fabric. In fact, as the minutes ticked by, it seemed to be whitening the area around the stain. Plus, it suddenly occurred to me that I would have to wash the whole quilt again anyway, just to get the Oxiclean out!  That risked more dye migration!

Here's What Worked for Me
So I switched to Plan B - the Synthrapol bath. I used the hottest possible setting for my washing machine (some people boil water to make it ultra-hot), poured in a couple of caps of Synthrapol, and sunk my quilt, stirring it now and then with a metal ruler to make sure everything was submerged.

The Synthrapol label says to wash it for five to ten minutes. The Internets had led me to think I should soak it for between 20 minutes and a week. I compromised with about an hour. The machine rinsed and spun the quilt, then I spread it out on the towel to block it again - and voila - merci! - the stains were 98% gone! My self respect was 98% restored! The quilt overall seemed a bit paler for the ordeal, but then again, so was I.

Here's an unretouched photo of the affected black-and-white block, post Synthrapol.

The affected area was the black-and-white block on the center-right, below. You can't tell from a distance that it had been stained. 

Here's the light blue strip that used to have purple stain: 

The white splotches might be from Oxiclean, but all the batiks are mottled, so it's not conspicuous.  

Don't make my mistakes! Here's my...

5 Point Plan for Avoiding and/or Fixing Dye-Bleeding Incidents: 

1. TEST IT BEFORE YOU USE IT! (I should make a quilt with those words on it!) I was so lazy about this, and I paid the price! In my experience, dark blues, reds, pinks, and magentas are the most likely culprits, in silk and cotton. This includes prints from reputable manufacturers, as well as solids and batiks.

I test fabric by cutting off a small piece, soaking it well in water, and wrapping it tightly with a white paper towel. Bleeding appears very quickly.

2. If it bleeds, Retayne it. If a bleeding fabric hasn't been stitched to other fabrics yet, treat with Retayne, following the bottle direction. After treatment, test again. If some of it is going back into your stash,  pin a coherent, legible note to your future self saying how it was treated, and whether it is now colorfast. (Write it with permanent ink on a scrap of white fabric instead of paper - paper rips off too easily.)

Your future self will thank your former self for these courteous notes (assuming future self can decode former self's handwriting.)

Retayne manufacturers say that after treatment, the fabric should only be washed in cool water. They don't say why. so I need to look into that. In the meantime, if your treated fabric goes into a quilt, be sure to include a label that says only to wash in cool.

3.  If it's stitched to other fabrics, (in a quilt, a quilt top, or a quilt backing) and has already bled, go for the Synthrapol. Soak the quilt/top/backing in hot water with a cap or two of Synthrapol. (follow label directions for quantity). Send it through the rinse cycle, and let it dry flat. This will hopefully float all the bleeding dye away.

For succeeding washes, the Synthrapol label says to use warm, not hot water, so you should write "warm water only" on the quilt label. (But what if  the fabrics in one quilt are treated with both Retayne and Synthrapol? I'd go for luke-cold? This question also needs more investigation.)

UPDATE: Check the updates at the bottom of this post. In a subsequent bleeding episode, I used Dawn dishwashing liquid, and it worked as well as the Synthrapol. However, the effects may not be as lasting as Synthrapol. 

4. Wear gloves. Synthrapol and Retayne are skin and eye irritants.

5. If  it's a snuggle quilt, skip the chemicals. I would not use either Retayne or Synthrapol in fabrics destined for baby quilts. Dharma Trading sells a less-toxic and less expensive substitute for Synthrapol that apparently works just as well, here. (And see the updates below!)

Here's my finished quilt! Ta Daa! Time to gnaw on chocolate! (But nowhere near my quilt.)

(I call it "Hashtag Strips." It's part of a series. I'll blog on this in the future.)

What has worked for you? 

UPDATE, 2/11/17. I had another bleeding episode - a dark blue piece of Japanese furoshiki fabric bled onto the red front of a quilt. Inspired by the information on Vicki Welsh's page (link), I used regular Dawn dishwashing liquid - a half cup, in a full washing machine of hot water. Soaked for 6 hours, rinsed, and the blue stain vanished. 

UPDATE, 2/15/16: Israeli quilter Shulamit Ron had a similar episode, but with a masterpiece museum-quality quilt! Here's her story, which also has a mostly happy ending:

I had a similar experience with my Armenian Bird of Paradise quilt. [Ed note: Find this incredible piece at http://www.shulamitquilts.com/#!bird-of-paradise/lihwn]. I finished most of it and was quilting the white background (the whole thing from applique to quilting was done by hand). The quilt was not supposed to be washed, ever, so I used many hand dyed fabrics, knowing that they might still bleed... 

I marked the background with a disappearing pen and midway through the quilting read a horror story about the disappearing pen rotting the fabric. So without thinking twice I dunked it into water to remove the toxic pen chemicals from the quilt. To my horror, the applique leaves and flowers started bleeding red, green and blue into the pristine white background. I freaked out, totally. I remembered reading about the color-catcher sheets. I left the quilt submerged in water so the dye doesn't dry out. Rushed to the nearest open supermarket and bought Woolite color catchers. Back at home I threw the quilt with a color catcher into the washer with some syntrapol and washed it. The color catcher came out brown, the quilt came out off-white. Not snow white, but without all the horrible dye stains. The quilting threads in the white background shrank and I had to take them out and quilt from scratch, but compared to losing the whole quilt, this was peanuts.

UPDATE 2/16/16. Kay Mackenzie, the Queen of Applique, fended off disaster with a Shout Color Catcher sheet.  Read her saga here: http://allaboutapplique.net/color-caught/.

UPDATE 2/24/16: Vicki Welsh is a quilter who ran lots of tests and concludes that soaking in Dawn is the best remedy for a bleed. Read about it here. Click "Download the Full Instructions Here" for the details. My supermarket doesn't carry the ultrapure Dawn, but I used regular Dawn and it worked fine.

UPDATE: Here's a promising method for removal of stains from quilts that you don't want to wet: http://willywonkyquilts.blogspot.com/2016/06/treating-stains-in-old-quilt.html.

UPDATE 1/3/17:  Sue from Maine shared with me how she removed stains from her just-completed son's high school graduation tee shirt quilt, which had turned blue in the wash.  For her, Shout Color Catchers did the job. "I started with the least aggressive suggestions and decided to simply soak with the Shout Color Catchers. So yesterday into the tub it went, w/a whole box of Color Catchers, some beneath some on top (no reason why) and lukewarm water.  After an hour drained the very colored water, and filled again 2 more times over 6 hours.  Added new color catchers for good measure.  SUCCESS! Most of the dye is out, some of the patchwork fabric is a total new color, but I’ll live with it!"
"We carefully pulled it out, gently squeezed some water from the blue border only and hung to dry overnight .... A great windy day here in Maine today and the quilt is clean, smells great and now inside the house for final drying near the wood stove and a big warm cuddle to soften the line-dried crispness."

UPDATE 7/13/18 Oops, I did it again. I had a deep red-and-black geometric print fabric that I figured couldn't possibly bleed - it's from a reputable manufacturer. I sewed it into a pieced quilt backing, and was just about ready to baste the three layers together, when I started to worry. Just to be safe, I figured I should test it, by wetting a small area and resting that area on a wet paper towel Sure enough, it bled like crazy, including some bleeding onto a neighboring fabric. I ripped out the red fabric (it was an entire yard, in the middle of my backing!) and treated it with Retayne, in hot water in the washing machine. Success! When I pulled it out and tested again, there was no bleeding whatsoever. For the neighboring piece that had some red dye on it, I soaked it in Dawn dishwashing liquid, and most of the red vanished. Know hope! 

Passover's Coming: 25 Ideas for Matzoh Fabric

Eerily realistic matzoh fabric is what brought me into making quilted Judaica some 20 years ago. I was already Jewish, and I was a new quilter, but when I first saw matzoh fabric, I was inspired! So lifelike! So irresistible! So fun!

In those days, Marcus Brothers made the fabric. Unfortunately, they discontinued it, but Lauree Feigenbaum of 1-800-dreidel.com picked up the slack. She offers light and heavyweight versions here. Fay Nicoll of Sunshine Sewing in Florida also sells trompe l'oeil matzoh fabric.

It's never too early to start sewing for Passover (which starts on April 22 this year). Here are just a few of the things I've made from matzoh fabric over many years. I hope they will help you brainstorm ways to spice up your seder!

1. First, of course, simple matzoh covers galore. 

Just surround the matzoh with a Judaic print and hand-quilt the matzoh in rows to create a bumpy texture. 

2. Passover themed postcards: 

Ten plagues

Seder plate components

I blogged these and more in 2014, here.  My patterns page includes FREE downloadable labels in Hebrew and English for plagues and seder plate components. Basic "How to Make a Fiber Arts Postcard" (for Passover or Easter or beyond) directions are here. 

3. Buttony cover : 

Closeup: 

It's machine-quilted with variegated thread: 

4. The traditional 'flying geese' design meshes beautifully with the Exodus story. I paper pieced the triangles:

Closer :

5. Next, a historically challenged Exodus-themed matzoh cover, with King Tut in the upper left and George Washington on the lower right....

...And rubber stamped feet leading from one to the other....

6. A broken dishes/broken matzoh theme dish. (Loops in the corner shape it into a dish.)

7. Heavily quilted matzoh star: 

8. Giant hardboiled eggs and tiny wine glasses, yum: 

9. A matzoh brick road snail's trail pillow: (The 'A-MAZE-ing Selvages & Jeans Pillow pattern on my patterns page works for this, or use any snail's trail pattern.)

10. Another "journey"-themed matzoh cover, with pyramids on top, famous Washington DC buildings on bottom, for a friend who lives in DC:

11. Spilled wine and plagues-themed matzoh cover: 

Detail: 

12. Moony matzoh cover: 

13. Experimental pouch...

It's an envelope with removeable pins. The pins can be taken off and worn.

14. Bags to hide the afikomen. This first one has a tulle bottom with sequins trapped between two layers. 

15. A simple envelope: 

16. Earrings:

Another earring:

17. Amulet necklace:

18. Brooch:

19. A playable tambourine (Plastic canvas inside holds it stiff): 

20. A teeny tote bag: 

21. A kippah (pattern is in my book.) 

22. Over the December 2015 winter holidays, I was invited to a party with relatives, including four different households, so I whipped up four ultra-fast, fun matzoh covers. Here's #1: 

The back has a Shabbat theme, so it's reversible...

23. This one uses a cute novelty Passover fabric, also avialable from 1800 Dreidel. 

24. A simple cover with stylish borders: 

25. During the height of Harry Potter madness, a golden matzohball snitch

It hangs in our kitchen! It's made from two baby kippah patterns from my book, with a  gold lamé insert.

What have you made or would you like to make from matzoh fabric?