aaactuuuaaallyyy..... now that i think of it......
if you did piano keys for one of the long strips and strips for the other long strip, if they are the the same width across (not length), you will get veeerrryyy interesting pieces.
following this thought further out, you could just use striped fabric instead of piano keys.
hey, if anyone does any of this, let's see it. i know it will work, but i'm too lazy to follow through.