Face Mask Sweatshops

I'm sitting down to write this after having spent most of the last 4 days sewing another 4 dozen "medical personnel" face masks. These aren't pretty--but they do have 4 layers of fabric with a pocket in the front. Since in my rural county all the elastic and bias tape long ago was used up for masks, I had asked the local medical center to ok us using 1 x 18" strips of t-shirts (raw,pulled to "roll" and then knotted)and they were good with that. Most of us doing these in quantity are doing assembly line production--by ourselves since we are in state-wide lock down.

Part of me is very proud, and glad, to be able to help those medical personnel that are the front line heroes in this Covid 19 Pandemic. Part of me is angry as hell that they are having to depend upon donations from quilters and other sewers to hopefully make them safe enough to work. Why the anger? As the richest country in the WORLD there is something VERY wrong that we were not better prepared--and since 1985 with HIV, the U.S. government and people have been aware that we were prime targets for a pandemic. After all, the 1918 "Spanish" flu pandemic actually started right here in Kansas (we just shared with the rest of the world) and wiped out a large portion of the population--and some places were spared more due to social isolation. So the lessons learned were certainly out there.

After having made 8 dozen of these "medical personnel" masks( and believe me, those 4 layers sewn into pleats mean that both my machine and I need spa days!), I'm calling it quits. Some of that is the result of the 21 yds of fabric used (granted,mostly in 1/4 & 1/2 yd increments) from my stash, approx. 900yds+ of thread, all the elastic and bias tape I could find in my stash--not to mention the incredible aching shoulders and back from hours of continuous sewing. But frankly, part of the decision to call it quits on face masks is that I've become emotionally overwhelmed with it.

When I talk with other quilters that are making masks I am hearing the same thing--that the needs continue to come from parts of the community that one has never heard from previously; that each "need" has a different pattern desired; that sharing out the pattern requested to one's sewing group comes with more requests, new patterns, etc. And basically after make 100 (or in some friends' cases 200-300!), we are all burnt out on face masks. This type of sewing is NOT relaxing!

So a HUGE shout out of thanks to all those that have labored over the last 2-3 weeks making face masks for the never ending requests. May those of you that find the work uplifting and welcome continue to make them. May those of you like myself that find them a symbol of frustration and anxiety about this pandemic stop when you hit your own personal limit. One last note---I used t-shirts I have been sitting on that are from the Louisburg Library for t-shirt quilts for them--one of those t's logo was a graphic UNMASK! from a creative activity they did--it will somehow feature in one of those quilts--more later! This is what 4 dozen medical personnel masks ready to go look like.