Month: March 2020

Due to the Coronavirus and a shortage of masks, many people are making cloth masks and donating them.  Hospitals, nursing homes, any place that uses masks might be in need of these!  I started out pretty confused by all the different patterns, but finally came up with something that seems to work well.  My sister in law is a nurse and this is the pattern she requested.  Check with your local hospital to see what they are accepting and know that things are constantly changing.  From what I can tell right now though, this is a great place to start.  This version has a pocket for a filter to be inserted, and a channel where a nose wire can be placed.  (Note: please leave the twisty tie out when donating as many hospitals are concerned about the wire holding up in the wash.)

I can NOT take credit for this pattern.  Its mostly taken from THIS youtube video, and my adaptations are mostly things that my friend Megan told me she was doing!  Thanks to video chat and me being thoroughly confused for a while and asking her lots of questions… we finally sorted it out.  I just wanted to show a couple of other people what I ended up learning, and well, we’re all quarantined, so this is the only way I can show my friends who are sewing these along with me.  🙂

Start with a piece of fabric, 15″ x 7.5″.

Serge or zigzag both short edges of your piece of fabric.  I used a G foot and selected stitch 6 on my machine.

Fold your piece in half, right sides together.  Place pins 1 1/2″ in from each edge and sew, leaving the middle open.

Iron the seam open and sew across each side of the opening.  This gets a little tricky, see the video I linked to above for a how-to.

I’ve been using two pieces of elastic, 8″ each.  This is where we stray a bit from the video… leave the piece inside out as shown and tuck one end of the elastic inside in the bottom corner and sew up the side, leaving 3-4″ open – don’t close the side all the way.  Be sure you situate the opening near the top of one side like this:  (It should even be a little bit farther up than shown, you just need to leave space for the nose wire channel you’ll make in a minute.)

Now turn it right side out.  Grab the free end of the elastic and tuck it in the top corner.  Turn the raw edges in and seal them up at the same time.  Sew down one side, across the bottom, and up the other side (tucking in the other edges and sticking the other elastic in, just as you did on the first side).

Being sure not to block your opening, add three pleats and clip or pin them.  (See, if my opening were just a bit higher here I’d have more room for the pleats.)

Hold the mask in front of you and be sure the pleats are even.

Sew across one side.  When you get to the end, go ahead and turn the fabric and sew back across that same side a second time so that it is nice and secure.

Measure 2″ in from each edge and sew a line across the middle, just under where my fingers are.  Make it about the width of your presser foot.  This is a space where a nose wire can be inserted.  (twisty tie, pipe cleaner, etc)  It can be removed for washing.  Also, some of the hospitals are requesting no wires, so this makes the mask useable either way.

In the very center of the bottom of the mask, make a little fold and sew back and forth across it.  This helps the mask to fit nicely around the chin.

This shows a twisty tie being inserted into the mask:

You’re all set!

Ok, for versions 2 and 3, keep scrolling.  Elastic is hard to find around here because all the crafters snapped it up to sew masks with!  I’ve made two different versions of this mask with cloth ties.  For this version, make four cloth ties (15-18″ each is what I’ve heard is best).  Add them in right where you would place the elastic, using the above pattern pretty much the same way.  My tie pieces started at 2″ wide, iron them in half the long way, then fold the edges in just like double fold bias tape and sew it up, tucking in the raw edge on the one end that will be loose.

For version 3, you will sew the main mask piece closed, pleat it, and add the nose wire channel first.  You can cut two pieces of fabric, 2″ x 40″ (the width of my fabric) and make straps.  Iron the strap piece in half long ways (so now it is 1″ wide).

Open your strap and find the middle of it.  Sew the back of the mask on to the strap like the picture shows:

Fold your strap around and pin or clip it shut, being sure to tuck in the raw edge at the end.  Sew from one end all the way down, over the mask, and on to the other end of the strap. Do this on both sides and you’re all set!  I think I left the chin tuck off of this one, but you could add one.

Let me know if you have any questions, I’ll try to answer.  Hope this is helpful!  Thanks for sewing!

 

Our Story:

It all started at the nursing home.  I was holding a toddler on my hip and had two other small children clinging to me, one on each leg… they were terrified.  I smiled and nodded in the direction of an elderly resident and my kids shuffled in closer to me.  We looked ridiculous huddled in the corner, me unable to move without setting off a panic attack in one of my kids.  Thankfully a few of my other children and the group we were with milled about the room chatting and receiving compliments on the piano performance they had just done.  Meanwhile I was suffocating.  We were supposed to be here, right?  Why was this so hard?  

I didn’t want to give up our visits to the nursing home, but in that moment I realized that there must be other ways we could volunteer.  I needed to find opportunities that would fit my kids personalities better.  This set off a year long kind of experiment that I pulled together.  I wanted to prove to my kids that they could enjoy serving others.  I wanted to show them the many ways that people see a need and step in.  I want them to be the kind of people who volunteer, who help, who see needs and fill them. 

In the past I felt like volunteering with kids was a lot of “purchase these items at the store and donate them.”  While we were happy to do that from time to time, it just wasn’t the type of thing we could do regularly.  … um, have you been to the store with six kids?  Its not an experience I want to repeat often, but mostly it just feels very disconnected for my kids.  We needed to find some hands on projects to be involved with as well.

All this in mind, I started searching.  It actually took quite a bit of planning and work.  Some organizations just didn’t have a need my kids could fill, others were happy to have us.  Some places I had never even heard of until I started keeping my eyes open for opportunities.  Since August, we’ve met my goal of serving somewhere at least once a month (and we still go back to see our friends at the nursing home too!).  Over time my kids got excited about this plan and they often ask “Where are we going next month?  And where after that?”  By God’s grace, volunteering has become regular for our family.  Its not a box that we check every now and then, but an exciting part of my kids’ lives.  

Q and A:

How do you do it?

I just email places and ask if we can volunteer.  I tell them I have a group of 16 kids, ages 14 down to 3.  I say we’re learning about volunteering and going to lots of different places and ask if we can help them somehow.  (The 16 kids?  We take 4 other families with us!  As long as I’m setting something up, I might as well invite friends too!)  I usually start looking for our next volunteer place a month or two ahead because it can take some time to coordinate schedules and set everything up.

Where have you gone? 

Love INC – a thrift store/ food bank.  This was one of my kids all time favorite places to go and the lady there was fabulous with the kids. 

Kids Food Basket – packages up lunches and snacks for kids in need

Rescue Mission – helped with the Thanksgiving banquet

Nestlings Diaper Bank – packaged up diapers to be distributed around the county

Salvation Army – helped sort toys for low income families at Christmas

Hope Packages – collected items and made backpacks for kids entering foster care

Family Hope Center (Rescue Mission’s women and children center) – sewed bright fun pillowcases to be given to residents, had a tour of the center

Days For Girls – helped sew cloth kits for girls in Africa

Medilodge nursing home – the kids play their instruments, sing, and sometimes sit and color with the residents.  We also like to make cards and deliver them to bedridden people here.

What do you have lined up for the future?

Oh I have a whole list!  We are going back to Love Inc and Medilodge.  We’re taking a tour of Mobility Worldwide, a place that makes carts for disabled kids in other countries (and this summer we plan to raise the money to sponsor a cart).  The Salvation Army has a food drive in the spring.  We are signed up to go help sort food on a Saturday.  My kids love going to the monastery so I’m hoping to attend the spring clean up day (May 30).  I’m interested in meeting with a therapy dog/owner team and hearing about what they do.  As I think of ideas or come across opportunities I make note of it.  Sometimes they pan out, sometimes they lead me to something else.  I’m not sure if we’ll keep trying everything we come across, or if we’ll eventually settle in to some favorite places we return regularly.  We’ll see what happens.

Do you specifically “teach” your kids anything as you take these trips?

For the most part I’ve tried to let the experiences speak for themselves, but we have had some good talks about the power of teamwork.  (“12 of us worked for an hour packing up food, if Miss Lisa had done that all by herself how long would that have taken her?  12 hours, a whole day!  Wow, we got a lot done just by working with our friends for an hour and that was really helpful for them!”)  I also like to point out to my kids that there are so many different ways to serve and that every personality can find something they enjoy and are good at.  I love learning about the various organizations and how they started and so on.  I’m learning just as much as my kids.

What changes have you seen or do you hope to see in your kids?

Well for one thing, we’ve volunteered so much that my kids just expect it.  Its not a big deal to take time out of our week to go somewhere, even though it didn’t start out feeling that way.  I’m thankful for that.  As we’ve gone to the nursing home over time the kids have learned some of the elderly people’s names and look forward to seeing them.  I’ve even started volunteering on my own at a place called Love Sews.  They sew quilts for people who’ve had life changing circumstances.  Its a really nice mama evening out when I can get away and sew for a few hours and Love Sews is a fabulous organization.  We all look forward to our various volunteer trips and I’m excited to see what happens next!  We’ll definitely keep volunteering!

Anything else you want to share?

Yes!  Please don’t take this as me bragging about what we’ve done!  It was a friend of mine who got my family started going to the nursing home in the first place.  🙂  I’ve just become really passionate about volunteering and wanted to share our experience.  Of course that experience isn’t going to be exactly the same for everyone and you’ll find what works best for you.  I just want to encourage people to get out there and try something.  Even with a large family, even with really shy kids, even if you don’t know what you’re doing! 

If this inspires you to try volunteering somewhere new, I’d love to hear about it.  And if you hear of new volunteer opportunities my kids and I could do, please let me know!