If you’ve been with me this week, you’ve seen my last few posts here have been sharing with you my new designs that will be debuting at Needlework Expo in just a week!
Today is the final of these five patterns – Matzo Cover
Let me get this out of the way right away – matzo, the cracker like food that is eaten at Passover, has a variety of English spellings. Because it is the transliteration of a Hebrew word (that’s the Hebrew right there, on my piece), there is not necessarily one “correct” way to spell it in English. (Relate this with the multiple ways to spell Hanukkah, Channukah, Hanukah, etc.) I actually did a little poll on a Facebook group – not which one was “right” but simply which way was the way you thought it was or should be. With matzo, matzah, matzoh, and matza being the options offered (all four are found, to one degree or another, online), matzo and matzah were the most popular. Kosher for Passover products from the biggest companies (Manischewitz and others) spell it matzo. So I stitched that. But, knowing that matzah seems in use quite often as well, there is a chart provided with that spelling also.
So, why a Passover cross stitch pattern? Passover is not really a holiday where Jewish people decorate, in the traditional sense. That doesn’t mean that nice dishes and glasses and table decor doesn’t come out – they most certainly do. At a Passover seder, the home “service” for this holiday, usually occurring on the first and second nights, there is always a plate of matzo on the table. While many just use a napkin to cover the plate, it is absolutely a place for a little decorative touch. So, a stitcher can create a matzo cover for themselves. Any fabric can be used, any size can be used. The stitched area is not large and so the overall dimensions (10″ x 10″? 12″ x 12″?) can be whatever the stitcher wants. For this model, I did a hemstitch edge to give it a nice finish. (Tutorials can be found on YouTube, although I very much used the book Hemstitching by Marion Scoular.)
And so there you have it folks – my five new patterns available first to shops at Needlework Expo next weekend (March 6 – 8). There is so much excitement in the cross stitch industry for this event and I am very much looking forward to being a part! Here’s hoping many store owners come by my booth!