Mask Medley

Well, this post has become a real accumulation of the events of the past few weeks, starting at the end of February.

I had a work trip to San Francisco at the time for a conference and before I left I started to get worried about being on the plane with possible covid19 exposure. The morning before the flight, I dipped into my fabric stash and pulled out a really cute swatch of cotton from Tokyo. I then took to bra straps from an old bra and cut them up to make elastics. Last, I used a really soft cotton flannel from mood as the liner. Ta da my first mask was born.

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From here, I sent a text to my mom to ask if this made any sense or if I would just be causing public alarm. She called me back and explained since this isn’t medical grade fabric I couldn’t necessarily rely on it to keep the virus out. I felt a little silly but brought it with me and didn’t wear it because I didn’t feel sick.

From there I returned home and things started to get more intense. Out of an abundance of caution I went to our local F+S Fabrics and picked up some elastic and quilting fabric. I figured if we didn’t have medical grade fabric it could still be nice to have something for a worst case situation.  From here we then moved on to mask style 2. And 2.5. At first I had the elastic sewn in like you see below but then I started to run out. With the elastics I tried to make them reusable with button side attachment and a more custom fit.

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Honestly these elastics really hurt our ears. I didn’t buy enough of it originally to give us more slack.

That has brought us to mask style 3 and the new advice that now we should actually wear these in public all the time.  I started to add these ties and now I’m making them for a friend who is a doctor and trying to make enough for our family such that if someone gets sick we will be able to have enough to take care of them for a few days with some washing.  I have made a few for local family and it is pretty weird that this is something that I’m able to do and it’s considered helping.

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And here’s a math mask for my math guy 🙂 (Britex fabrics)

These are heading out west to a friend that’s a doctor.

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I hope you all continue to stay healthy and safe!