Mask Making Weekend

Over the weekend I reached out to neighbors and friends to see if anyone needed some cloth masks. As it's very hard to buy them right now almost everyone said yes, including our next-door neighbors. So I went into production.

Along with five plain elastic masks I customized this pair with pocketing for one pal:

For the pocket I did a lengthwise split along the inside center, which should allow the most room for filtering materials.

These are tie-on masks (my first, too) made of cotton chambray for a pal's doctor husband, who is working on the front lines in the city. These will be for when he's not working. Chambray is a little denser than my quilting cottons, and the denim look of it should go with anything:

For the ties I cut 1" X 17" strips of broadcloth, ran them through my bias tape maker, and then folded the two folds over and sewed a single row of stitching down the center.

I was also finally able to order some 1/4" white elastic from an Etsy seller, which should arrive by the end of the week.

Comments

nightsmusic said…

You're a good person, Charlie Brown ;) They are awesome! Hubs has to wear the 'made by your fellow GM employee' masks at work, not allowed to wear anything else. Thing 1 gave me a couple N95 masks out of her stash because of my lung issue, but I'm wearing a cloth mask over that to make it last longer.

May 12, 2020 at 7:56 AM

Maria Zannini said…

I'm so excited (and relieved).

The order I placed at Amazon has now been delayed another month. Expected delivery late July. :(

Thank you so much! You're a true friend.

May 12, 2020 at 9:40 AM

Other Stashes

Along with clearing out the spare bedroom and tidying my office and our guest bedroom, I decided to reorganize some of my stashes. This is all the yarn I have on hand, sorted by color. It looks like a lot, but lately I've been using up a minimum of half a bin every month, so this is approximately a year's supply. All of my solid color cotton perle thread. I go through a lot of this every year, too. I need a container in which I can fit all of it together, but I haven't found the right one yet. I won't show you all of my fabric -- I'm still reorganizing this stash -- but I went through everything and donated two bins of fabric I won't need to the local quilter's guild.

Downsizing

This was my fabric stash once I sorted everything -- 22 full bins. I spent a day taking out and boxing up what I could part with, with the goal of trying to reduce it by half, so I'd have 11 bins. I was very strict with myself, and removed everything that for one reason or another I was sure I wouldn't be able to use. This is what I ended up with -- 12 bins of fabric that I'm keeping. It's not quite half, but close enough. Half of what I took out went to a local quilter friend, a school and Goodwill. These four tightly-packed bins will be going to the local quilting guild once I make arrangements with them for a drop-off place. I am relieved and a little sad and now determined to control my impulses to thrift more fabric. I don't want to do this again, so until I use up six bins, I can't for any reason bring any new fabric into the house.

In Progress

I promised myself I would show you the good, bad and ugly of my cleaning this year. This is what it looks like when you dump thirty years' worth of stashed fabric on the floor -- and oy, what a pain in the butt to pick up again! This is what it looks like after it's been sorted, folded and placed in containers, which took me about a week. Now the hard part is to downsize my stash by at least half, I think (that's my goal, anyway.) I've already e-mailed the president of the local quilting guild, a local friend who is a quilter, and a public school art teacher I know to see if I can donate some of the excess to them. The rest will go to Goodwill. Already I've reduced my vintage textiles from two bins to one, and my scraps from three bins to one. It's probably the hardest clean-out I've done, which is why I saved it until last. I know I have too much fabric, more than I can use in my lifetime -- but at the same time, I love it. So I have to...

Valerean

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