Making Masks - Like Everyone Should Be

Yep, if you can sew you should be pumping these guys out whenever you can.  Even if your local hospital isn't taking donations (not very bright) you can always mail them to someplace like:

Yale New Haven Health System

Regional Operations Center

Attn: PPE Donations

600 Derby Ave. (Route 34)

West Haven, CT 06516

The pattern Yale (and so the rest of Connecticut) requested to be used is this one:

https://www.craftpassion.com/wp-json/mv-create/v1/creations/19/print

I'm just getting familiar with the pattern I'm using and figuring out how to fabricate things I don't have (sturdy, thin ties). Even being a newbie to this, and being amazingly slow I can get out ten a day.  Of course I have a little help.

The boy is remote schooling for the near future and has a lot of free time.  He thought he was going to have some extra quality video gaming time.  Mwahaha!  Seriously though, he's been all about helping.  

My biggest 'stepped in it' so far was doing the ties.  (I'm out of elastic and there's none to be had.)  I tried to get too cute and doing turned tubes.  

The first six masks I did in that first picture all had these bad, thick tubes.  Plus I can't find my loop turner so I had to use a threaded rod to turn them which shredded the raw edges and made them even fluffier.  

Thankfully Chaly at Victoria Sweatshop saw my rope ties and recommended using binding tape instead.  Of course I just happen to have a few old binding attachments about.

Sweet, right?  Except for one small problem.  Any binding attachment I dug out of the drawers were freaking slant shank!  Seriously.  

So I know what you are thinking.  "Dude, two posts ago you got a 404."  True, except the 404 is vacationing down in West Hartford with one of the Boy Scouts.  So that leaves.... the 301! woo! (401 and 403 are never in consideration for anything requiring a straight stitch).

I don't have a binding tape maker, so I had to hand fold and iron the 1" strips.  It really isn't that difficult.  Just watch your fingers when ironing.  Also I never used the binding attachment before so I didn't realized you need the tape fed well into the feed dogs for them to catch it.  So you loose about an inch of tape each time.  No real biggie just a gotcha.  And since the binding isn't being stitched to anything I could run the 301 flat out to make lots of ties really quick.

So you might notice the 301 is a bit dusty.  There's a good reason.  A while back I was playing around with doing some free motion quilting.  And since the 301 can drop its feed dogs I thought it would be awesome at it.  Only problem was that I didn't have a slant shank free motion foot.  "No problem," I thought.  I was using a small loop so I didn't think it would pull up the fabric that much.  Well... you see, those feet also keep things like... YOUR FINGERS from getting under the needle.  And a 301 will drive a freaking needle right through your fingernail, through the meat and jam it pretty dang deep into the bone before it quits.  I had to remove the needle (with my finger still skewered) to work it out.  After that the 301 now has a name, "Marge's Ire".  And it also sat on the shelf for a few months out of fear that Marge had more in store for me.

The binding tape ties came out much better than the tube ties.

They don't look that different, but seeing them live is a big difference and they feel completely different when you try to tie them.

I still had a couple of masks to top stitch after doing the ties so I thought I might try top stitching on Marge's Ire.

The 301 was just too fast going around the curve.  All kinds of wobbling off line.  So low speed treadling on Black Swan is once again proven to be the only way I should sew things I want to come out decent.

Since I used the 301 for a significant bit during this I figured the end result is something Marge wouldn't be quick to send me to the hole for.  Though I'm sure there would be a few lashes with the measuring tape for missing my line on the 301 top stitching.

Now get out there... well, in there, and sew some masks!