A rough April

As with most states, here in Illinois we are staying home, shopping online and doing lots of cooking. A lot of companies are closed with people laid off (my son included) but the company my husband works for is considered an essential business and they have been open. They took every precaution possible, having people work from home, extra cleaning of the offices, etc.  One such precaution was asking for help to provide masks for all the employees working in the field. Of course I said yes, but I didn't have any elastic, instead I found a pattern that used clothesline and quickly made up 50 plus masks for him to take in for anyone who wanted one.

My daughter saw the photos and asked me to make her and her shipmates some masks. How many I asked. Her reply, "400"! Umm, what? It turned out the supply officer was having difficulty locating cloth masks and they would need them when they eventually returned to port. I knew this was a more than I would be able to produce, so I put out a request on Facebook and thankfully many of my friends jumped in. Good thing too, since the Navy has continues to have difficulty locating cloth masks and they will need all the masks being sent by our home sewing friends.

When wearing a mask on base along with their cover, I thought I should order elastic (which was not an easy task). Then ordered fabric from my favorite quilting store, The Quilt Merchant, which was fun via phone and photos. I spent lots of time researching different patterns to determine which one would be quickest yet serve their needs the best. Once I started sewing and I was able to figure out how to efficiently create the pleats, I was able to get the masks down to about 10 minutes per mask.

In all I was able to finish 150 masks. Which will be enough for about a third of the sailors aboard ship. Add in the other masks that should be arriving and they should have enough that the sailors won't need to cut up their t-shirts (which is their other option).

Although this was rewarding sewing and I'd do anything for my girl and her shipmates, this was probably one of my least favorite sewing projects ever. I hope I don't have to do this again any time soon. But at least the fabric is pretty.