For the Nurses

I know it might be hard to tell from the photo but these are 20 headbands made from jersey fabric to be used by our local nurses as ear savers.  The buttons go right behind the ears and the elastics from their masks can be hooked on the buttons.  Information about the headbands can be found here.

This was an interesting project because I had never worked with jersey before.  It's challenging because of the the stretch. That's why I needed to use the zigzag stitch.   The fabric was intended to be used as a summer maxi dress for me but since the goal was to practice using jersey, this seemed like a better use of the fabric.

The buttons make me smile.  While each headband has different buttons, they do match on the headbands themselves.  I took some from my grandma's button collection, some from my mom's friend's collection and some from my classroom collection.

Grateful

I am really grateful that I was able to make these masks.  These twenty are the result of a donation of needles I was given.  I had run out of sewing needles and placed three different orders from three different locations on Easter Sunday.  None of the orders have arrived yet.  I had my brother put a call out on Facebook and thankfully two women came to my rescue.  I was especially grateful because one also gave me a large cone of white thread.  Every white threaded tie after this picture is going to be thanks to my new cone of thread.  The lamb fabric was also donated.  Aren't they cheery?   The purple fabric was given to me by my cousin and the green fabric was in my stash.  It's actually a Christmas one that says "Joy to the World" but you only really notice the gold musical notes.

If you are interested in the story of the mask making or want links for the pattern, they can be found in my earlier post here.

Masks Upon Masks

Be careful what you wish for!  I've been saying for months that I wanted to get better at sewing as soon as my coursework is finished.  Well, I was to finish my last course for my diploma on April 6th. On April 5th, a coworker asked me to make some masks for Canada Sews, a grassroots organization that is making masks for frontline workers who are short of PPE (personal protection equipment).  My coworker is heading the Vancouver/Lower Mainland branch and knows that I am crafty.  I thought I was agreeing to make a couple masks.  No, the minimum donation is 20 masks.  Okay, I can figure this out.  Please remember that before this started, I struggled to thread my machine and sew in a straight line.  I've now completed 100 masks.  I forgot to take pictures of the first 30 and was kicking myself.  This is the second set of forty masks.  We are using a pocket mask so that wearers can add their own filter.  The pattern can be found here.  I started with making ties because elastic could not be found in Canada but after lots of reviews, I am continuing with ties.  Many of the elastics are not holding up to being washed.  I am pretty picky with my materials.  Everything is 100% cotton, including the thread so that they can go through industrial washing machines and even go through an autoclave if necessary.  My mom worked in an OR in her twenties and used to be in charge of cleaning and picking sets and running the autoclave so she was very helpful in letting me know some of the dos and don's.  Who knows if we will have to go back to that style of cleaning instead of disposable with the way the supply chains are going.