Hello Sunday! We are following the CDC guidelines to wear a mask anytime we go out in public. It is good advice and everyone should follow it. You don’t need much to make one. I think everyone is overthinking it and most households do not have the materials or tools to make one of their own. There are tons of people making amazing grass roots efforts to stitch masks at home to donate and sell. You can buy one from them, or if you have one, break out your old sewing machine and spend your quarantine days trying to make some for yourself. There are a million patterns online. It might be hard to believe, but I do not have a single bit of any of the materials needed to make a mask. Nor do I have a machine that will stitch the lightweight materials used for one. We don’t use elastic in our bags, our machines are designed for very heavy weight fabric and all of our materials are heavy canvases that have been treated with water resistance and wax…not something you want to breathe through. I tried to put some knit t-shirt material through one of our machines yesterday and it just gobbled it up. So, I just cut a 24” x 24” square out of a big old t-shirt, folded it into a triangle and tied it around my head like a bandana. The t-shirt material is stretchy so it makes a good seal around your face and is rated as one of the better materials for filtration and breathability. This is what we are using. We wore it on the bike path today and we’ll wear it to the grocery store. Aside from those two things, we are not going anywhere else. And, so long as you are keeping your proper social distance, it should be enough. The mask is just a layer of protection to keep you safe and keep the people around you safe. It’s pretty simple. You should do it, too.
