Wearing of face masks has now also joined the battle against COVID especially as initially health experts and governments all over the world were in two minds of the effectiveness of using masks although many Asian countries were encouraging the use with some even making it mandatory.
New Zealand has now weighed into the conversation with our Health Ministry encouraging everyone to wear a face mask when outside in public to stop the spread of the virus. They have stopped short of making it enforceable because then it becomes problematic with lots of viral videos around the world showing how many dislike being forced to wear masks even if it does save lives.
In watching this conversation unfold earlier, my mother sewed up some masks in our first lockdown which we used with the support of my younger sister and her YouTube videos. This time I thought I'd try my hand at it with my newly purchased mother's day sewing machine (on sale) that was purchased and to give it a workout.
The fact is that the reusable face masks aren't always easily purchased at your local store although the once use only ones are easily found but can rack up costs if used only once per day. Upon researching on YouTube videos, I combined a couple of ideas and made up some of my own with left over materials so that they are lined with an outside and inner materials.
I've also cut up an old Tshirt (my daughter's idea) as she wanted a black facemask and that's the beauty of creating your own facemasks in that you can use any thinly woven materials such as those pictured here with pastel colours, pacific tapa, Christmas cotton etc.
I couldn't come up with any elastic, so have gone for ribbons instead that's because with my corsage and buttonholes flower art that I love to create, I also had some leftover ribbons. So I would highly recommend to view some ideas on YouTube and then venture to make your own. There are some also that you can make up that don't require sewing or you can hand stitch instead.
I gave some out to my family members and they have been rigorously tested as I did in taking a fast walk around our neighbourhood with our masks on when it was dizzyingly and they definitely passed the test. Especially as my glasses would usually fog up when using my former facemask (although they did when it started raining and it was cold).
Otherwise, I'm also looking at how I can make up (with a team) some to give out to our local church community and to those who desperately need them in our communities as when I went shopping yesterday at our local supermarket, many weren't wearing masks. Perhaps with a koha (donation)?
More food for thought as we battle this virus, look out for each other and also keeping ourselves entertained with creative mask making....
No comments:
Post a Comment