I have to wear reading glasses. That doesn’t mean they have to be boring.
The older I get, the more I realize having fun or being silly helps mental health. In this new era of the Coronavirus, we can apply the same concept to the new garment de rigueur that we all should wear.
The CDC advises the “use of simple cloth face coverings to slow the spread of the virus and help people who may have the virus and do not know it from transmitting it to others.”
I was inspired by several friends recently, concerning simple cloth face masks.
We are picturing the day (and think it will be hilarious) when Louis Vuitton and Burberry are creating designer masks!
Janette
Marilynn G. heard the virus might be coming, and noticed the volunteers at a food pantry she helps needed some to help serve others. Then she thought of a scene from the movie “It’s a Wonderful Life” when the women are rolling bandages to help out the war effort in WW II.
Marilynn felt like it might be good to step in to help with this current “war effort.”
She likes to sew and quilt and has lots of scraps around, with “Cubby Blue” being a favorite here in Chicagoland. She had seen other masks online that her husband might not want to wear, so for him, she went to some chambray.
She found a pattern online, and was able to make 24 masks, and donated about fifteen so far.
Marilynn spent approximately seven hours, all-told, creating those, and found the biggest problem was that all the stores are sold out of elastic!
She can make the masks while watching TV ( not her husband’s favorite time, but oh, well.) She says the masks can be laundered or hand washed again and again for re-use.
Meanwhile, Maggie T. was interested in masks for her children and family.
She has some autoimmune issues, and must be very careful during the pandemic. Maggie asked her sister, Kathy, who makes quilts and other crafts, if she could create some masks and showed her an online pattern.
Kathy also has a friend who is an ER doctor who gave her an example to learn from and make a pattern. Kathy is a kindergarten teacher who is now helping her students with remote learning. The teaching team is putting in lots of virtual communication hours together to determine best practices to help even little children who are home and might not have all the tools from school to use at home.
But now Kathy is using her commuting time to create masks from all kinds of fabric scraps, from Grateful Dead fabric to flamingos and baseball fabrics! Kathy has so far made 24 masks, with more people asking for some when she has time.
The thing here is…kids don’t have to wear those ugly, kind of scary masks to have a cloth face cover.
The CDC states, “The cloth face covering recommended are NOT surgical masks or N-95 respirators. Those are critical supplies that must be reserved for healthcare workers and other medical first responders, as recommended by current CDC guidance.”
Marilynn G. And I are picturing the day when Louis Vuitton and Burberry are creating designer masks!
If the mask is a new normal, let’s not have them be so frightening.
Pediatrics has known for sometime that masks and uniforms with colors and patterns are more calming. These can even be worn by my grandchildren without the added stress of being fearful looking.
One of my favorite authors, Jill Conner Browne, stated that (and I paraphrase here), her Daddy used to say there are very few things in life that you truly cannot change. But if there truly is something that you cannot change, you should find a way to have fun WITH it, or create fun OF it, to help strengthen yourself and others to carry that burden.
I say, go for the silly!
I think of this possibility as finding some rainbow in the rough news. If I ever find myself in a post-apocalyptic world, I hope crafters are around even more than “techies,” because they’ll find a way to fix things and do it with some fun.
My final words: Rhinestones, baby!
Great topic and story! So many people are making masks and wearing them. It’s fun to think of masks as fun, cute, funny and designer!