Like most people, when the news about a new virus infecting people began rumbling around we never thought that almost a year later we would still be dealing with the virus as an active agent in our communities.
On March 12th 2020 both of our families were at our children’s school celebrating the kids’ achievements at the Sophomore Honor Breakfast. Most of the families were discussing the virus and wondering what would happen. That evening the alert came – school was closed for Friday the 13th and there would be an announcement over the weekend about what it would look like when the students returned to school on Monday. The students never did go back to school for the rest of the school year. While our district has opened for the 2020-2021 school year with a hybrid model, our children are attending remotely and splitting their time between their traditional high school classes and classes at the local community college.
One by one our plans fell to the endless stream of closures and cancellations. Graduation ceremonies, birthday parties, vacations, plays, craft fairs, dentist appointments – until eventually we only left the house to go to the grocery store. Essential shopping is still the only time we leave the coop these days but we have been crafting… but the vast majority of that crafting has been mask making for ourselves, our friends, and our community. Together we’ve donated hundreds of masks to city hall, the school department, and wherever else we thought some extra masks could help. Meg has also repurposed their 3-D printer to make some ear savers. We included those in some “pick me up” boxes we put together for first responders with some help from our Modern Woodmen chapters:
The mask pattern I have been using so long that I can quite possibly sew this mask in my sleep is from Sweet Red Poppy. I liked it because it incorporated a filter and because it had a nose wire and because it ties instead of loops – loops plus glasses are too much for my ears to handle. Here is a smattering of the masks I’ve made:
Mask requests have slowed and the holidays are upon us so we’ve been looking forward to celebrating Thanksgiving and Christmas as much as we can under the circumstances. We’ve made some fun holiday items and look forward to sharing posts on them in the coming weeks! We have a special 12 days of Christmas set of posts planned with stories, new items for our Etsy Shop, recipes, and a special give away!
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