It's hard to know what the best practices are during this pandemic, but we keep adding to our armor. This week I made "surgical" masks for us to wear when we go out, which for us is the grocery store and that's about it.
I found instructions on Youtube, and dug through my scrap box to find supplies. I read online what the best materials were and although cotton was recommended, I did find a chart that showed the filter quality that was the very best, aside from the official N95 masks, was vacuum cleaner bags. So I make my masks with a layer of vacuum cleaner bag between two layers of cotton fabric.
I didn't have any quarter inch elastic, but I had some wide elastic, so I cut lengthwise slices off of that. I think it will hold. I didn't want to go out shopping and I also knew that JoAnn's was already completely out of quarter inch. Making masks is the new thing.
I made mine first, and made mistakes and fumbled around, but I got it done. Then I made one for Tom, and then one for each of my family members. Everybody gets their own color.
My machine did not like sewing through all the the folds on the side, so my stitching looks pretty pathetic, but they work.
Jill picked hers up yesterday, and we'll deliver Jake's tomorrow. If they never wear them that's OK. But they have them.
So today we went grocery shopping, armored with latex gloves and masks. We got up early to get to the store at 7:30 for the Seniors special hours. This week the store was not crowded at all and the check out lines were minimal and marked off. We found everything we needed, plus some things Jake needed but couldn't find in the city last weekend.
We will be making a delivery to Jake tomorrow, a chance to take a drive. Yay! Jake is still working. This morning we communicated via texting, and I got this photo.
He is surveying stream banks on the upper Skykomish River, self isolating out in the semi-wilderness. King County want his company to keep working, so I guess his job is "essential". It's a relief to know both of my adult kids still have an income, at least so far.
But back to the masks. I didn't like wearing mine, and my glasses kept steaming up, but I managed. The pattern I followed doesn't have a wire to bend around the nose to prevent gaps. I thought that might help with the steaming up problem, so I engineered a solution. I used seam binding to make a pocket to feed thin wire through.
And that's how I have been occupying myself lately.