Molly's Sketchbook: Afikoman Cloth

Finding the afikoman is most children's favorite part of the Passover Seder. The afikoman (which means dessert in Greek) is a broken piece of matzah. Most of the time it is hidden by an adult at the beginning of the Seder for the children to find. Towards the end of the meal the children set out to find it, and when they do they receive a prize. Once the afikoman is found it is divided and eaten and the Seder can be concluded. Primarily it's a playful way to keep the kids awake throughout the long seder!

Usually the afikoman is just placed in a dinner napkin before being hidden but I wanted to make something special for this particular piece of matzah. I love the idea of creating something pretty and handmade that will get used year after year for such a specific purpose. Plus I love any excuse to make something so purely decorative and impractical yet so special.

The afikoman cloth I created is two sided and totally reversible. This makes it really fun to fold around the afikoman, I like doing it so that the printed side is peeking through, like this:

I used the simple Essex linen cotton blend for one side and the lovely, old fashioned Tan-Brown Lace print by Windham Fabrics for the other. I embroidered through both layers with some pretty embroidery thread using the outline of the Windham print as a guide for my embroidery. I find hand sewing projects like this to be very relaxing and I love the heirloom quality of the finished product, so much so that I even sewed the binding on by hand! 

Materials

To make one 20 x 20-inch afikoman cloth:

• 3/4-yard Nancy's Blues Tan/Brown Lace
• 3/4-yard Essex in Sand
• 1/4-yard Olympus Mijin-Jima in Brown
• One ball of Valdani Embroidery Thread in Dusty Rose
• One 3/4" bias tape maker
• One 12-inch embroidery hoop
• An embroidery needle
• Some leftover thread for basting

Cutting

Cut a 20 x 20-inch square from both the Essex and the Lace print.

Cut four 1 3/8-inch wide by 21-inch long strips from the Mijin Jima fabric. Put these strips aside, they will be used for the binding later.

Basting

In order to keep the Essex and the Lace Print from shifting around during the embroidery you have to thread baste them together. Thread basting consists of sewing large stitches that you'll pull out later.

Place your Essex and Lace Print pieces on top of one another, right sides facing out. Make sure that the sides and corners of both squares are lined up exactly.

Using the leftover thread (it's best to use a color you can see clearly on your background fabric) sew large loose stitches across the whole length of the square. You will be pulling all of this out at the end of the project. Do not tie knots at the beginning or end of your sewing and make sure to leave long tails at each end so you can pull the thread out easily later. Keep the two squares laying as flat as possible as you baste and do not pull the stitches tight or else your finished cloth will have puckers in it.

Thread baste the entire area of the squares.

Embroidery

Place your basted square into the embroidery hoop with the printed fabric on the top. It should be fairly tight.

Thread the needle with an 18-inch length of embroidery thread and tie a small knot at the end. To start your embroidery and hide your knot first place your needle an inch or so from where you intend to start embroidering. Pull your needle through only the top layer of fabric and come out where you want to start embroidering. Make sure that you are not poking through to the other side of the fabric but instead that your needle is traveling in-between the two fabrics.

Pull your needle through and then give the thread a little tug until the knot disappears in-between the two layers.

Then snip the end of the thread where it's sticking out of the fabric.

Note: The way you hide the knots (at both the beginning and end of seams) in this project is basically the same as in hand quilting so if you know how to do that you're all set!

Using a small running stitch embroider around the edges of the lace print. Make sure to go through both the top and the bottom layers now.

The design on this print has an area that overlaps so instead of embroidering over it twice you can slip your needle through the two layers of fabric when you get to the overlapping section and then start again where the overlap ends.

To finish a length of thread simply tie a small quilters knot (by wrapping the thread around the needle twice as shown above) directly at the point where the thread last came out of the fabric.

Then hide it between the two layers of fabric, just as you did for the first knot, only in reverse. Place the needle as if you were making the next stitch but only push though the top layer of fabric, then pull it out about an inch away as shown above. Tug on the needle until the knot disappears and snip the thread end.

Embroider over the entire design in this manner.

Make sure to sew tidy running stitches because the back is just as important as the front!

Pull out the basting. (This is one of the most satisfying parts of the whole project!)

Iron the piece and you're ready to put on the binding.

Binding

Follow the instructions that come with the bias tape maker and iron your four strips of mijin-jima fabric into 3/4-inch pieces of binding tape, or check out my handmade napkin project here for a visual. (The original strips were not cut on the bias so I won't be calling this "bias tape".)

Pin one piece of the binding tape to one edge of the square. Make sure that the tape is sandwiching both sides of the square together.

Sew this side on with a small running stitch and trim the edges of the tape.

Repeat this on the opposite side of the square.

On the final two pieces of tape iron both ends of each so the tips come to a little point, as shown above.

Place the tape on one of the raw edges of the square with the little folded end sticking out beyond the corner at both the beginning and end of the side as shown above.

Iron and fold the little triangle fold down over each edge.

Then pin the whole length of tape down and sew it with a small running stitch.

Make sure to pay close attention to the corners and to secure them well.

Iron the whole thing again and you're all done!

Folding

There is no right or wrong way to fold this cloth but here is a cute idea that I like a lot:

Place the afikoman inside the cloth.

Fold the cloth into a triangle so that the inside fabric is showing along the top edges, as shown above.

Flip the whole thing over so just the outside fabric is showing.

Fold the right corner of the triangle in and then fold the left corner on top of the right.

Fold the top of the triangle over to the front and voila! What a pretty package!