FACE MASKS

You might be getting a bit tired of everything corona-related (I know I sure am from time to time), but I still wanted to share some of the corona related things I made recently. The pandemic has been hard to ignore and the work that I did do in the first couple of months after the outbreak was heavily influenced by it.

When this whole thing started out – everything closing down, the advice to stay at home as much as possible – I wasn’t sure what to do with it. If I should do anything with it. The fact that our toddler was now at home full time and I didn’t have a lot of time to do anything anyway, was a good excuse to just sit with the not knowing for a while. Another good excuse: I found out I’m pregnant just before the lockdown started and it didn’t take long for the nausea and lack of energy to kick in.
At some point I read about the need for face masks in care facilities. Hospitals where already short on medical grade masks, so people who care for the elderly or disabled weren’t getting any. I joined a facebook group where people were voluntarily sewing face masks for care facilities. I still didn’t have a lot of time and energy, but slowly but surely I was making quite a few of them.

After a while the demand for face masks for care facilities was drying up a bit, but I was getting some requests for face masks from friends and family. In The Netherlands it’s not very common to wear masks in public places, but you’re required to wear one on public transport since the 1st of June so more and more people need them. I made a batch for friends and family and put the extra ones on Etsy. Apparently their guidelines that say you’re not allowed to profit from tragedies apply to postcards but not face masks.

If you’re one of the few people who are still looking for a face mask you can check them out. They all come with a filter pocket and a nose wire, and are washable at 60°C.