Plague diary -- security theater

I don't know what it's like in your neighborhood, but here the coronavirus is getting closer and scarier every day.  Our governor has put in new lockdown orders, a couple of friends and relatives are awaiting the results of covid tests, and this morning a contact tracer from our local health department called to say a visitor to PYRO Gallery on Saturday just tested positive.

The person taking the gallery shift this afternoon said she would make a point of wiping down all the doorknobs, light switches, furniture and fixtures.  I had a disconnect when I read her message.  A few hours earlier I had read in the New York Times that the public health people now have concluded that there is "little to no evidence that contaminated surfaces can spread the virus."  

In other words, all the ostentatious deep cleaning, all the guys in hazmat suits spraying down airports, all the washing of cans and bottles from the grocery, all the three-day quarantining of mail, probably didn't accomplish much in the way of keeping us safe.  

How does this happen -- the conventional wisdom from March turns out to be mostly wrong in November?  I think there are two elements in play.

First is that in March we knew so little about the coronavirus and how it operates, so we seized upon the few things we could pin down and measure.  Somebody in a lab somewhere determined that a virus particle could live on a surface for days, so it seemed like a no-brainer to splash bleach on all the surfaces you could think of.  Couldn't hurt, right?  And then when later scientific experiments and observations realized that the real danger comes from the airborne particles from sneezing, coughing, singing, yelling and otherwise breathing hard, it's hard to make people forget the terrified response that used to seem like a good idea.

But second, wiping down surfaces quickly became security theater.  You know, like making everybody take their shoes off to get through airport security, even though there never has been another shoe bomber since that one nut job was caught in 2001, even in all the countries of the world where you don't have to take off your shoes.  

It's one thing when those in power deliberately use security theater to put on a show of concern and action, even while they're doing very little about the real dangers.  I'd put taking-off-shoes in that category.  And I'd put some of the hazmat disinfection efforts by businesses in that category as well, as if wiping down the doorknob or the assembly line makes up for failure to have employees keep proper distance, failure to enforce mask wear, or failure to test and trace infections among workers or customers.

But what's really unfortunate is when we use security theater against ourselves.  When we spend lots of time and money on Clorox wipes and think our families are safe because we scrubbed the sink twice since breakfast.  Or the flip side -- when we persuade ourselves that masks don't stop the virus, that it's only security theater; when we persuade ourselves that a big Thanksgiving dinner is OK because we're only inviting our family members, and canceling festivities is only security theater; when we persuade ourselves that God won't let us get sick when we go to church, and online or at-home worship is only security theater.

I know it's hard to keep up with the changing dos and don'ts of the pandemic.  In March they were telling us to scrub the canned tuna but don't bother to wear a mask.  In November they're telling us to wear a mask everywhere but don't bother with the bleach.  It takes time and energy to keep up with the changing advice, and people who don't trust scientists may not follow it anyway.

So as a result, here we are today -- 57 million people sick around the globe, 1.3 million dead, more sick and dead in the United States than in any other country.  I say there's a particular place in hell for those who mislead us into doing the wrong things, or who urge us to do whatever we want, as if there were no pandemic at all. 

Wear your masks, people!  But probably don't bother with the Clorox.  

Masks for Australia

After I wrote in April about making masks for friends, family and supporters of PYRO Gallery, my sister-in-law in Australia asked whether I could make some for them.  I said of course, whipped out four beautiful masks, packed them up and took them to the post office.

I regularly send stuff to two foreign countries: Australia and Germany.  I've dabbled in other carriers but my go-to is the post office.  I love the post office; I love the stamps, and the ubiquity of the service, and the daily delivery; I love getting and sending real mail to and from real people.  I've read the history and learned how the post office, serving all the 13 colonies, was the major institution to hold the disparate settlements together before independence.  For many years I sent a postcard to my mother every day and found joy and comfort in the ritual of the mail.  I am appalled at the president's attempts to cripple or kill the post office.  So I'm a big fan.  Hold that thought as I tell you the rest of the story.

Time passed and I realized, weeks later, that I hadn't received a thank-you note for the masks.  I found the receipt somewhere in the pile of stuff on my desk, and checked the tracking number.  Here's what I learned:

May 1 -- mailed

May 2 -- arrived at Louisville Distribution Center

May 5 -- left Louisville Distribution Center

May 5 -- arrived at Chicago Network Distribution Center

May 5 -- arrived at Chicago International Distribution Center

May 6 -- arrived at Chicago International Distribution Center  (yes, I know it arrived the day before but now apparently again)

May 6 -- left Chicago International Distribution Center 

May 10 -- in transit to next facility

May 21 -- processed through Chicago International Distribution Center 

June 8 -- arrived Chicago (where I thought it had been for the last month...)

June 9 -- departed O’Hare

Now, I like Chicago as much as anybody, and I would personally be happy traipsing around the place for a month, returning periodically to my base of operations to change clothes and regroup, but I didn't think that mail did that sort of thing.  Guess I was wrong.  

After its month in Chicago, the package set off for the Southern Hemisphere.  By boat?  By carrier pigeon?  It arrived on June 20.  Must not have been by boat, because when we took a cargo ship across the Pacific it took 14 days from Los Angeles to New Zealand, and this was only 11 days.  So probably an airplane, albeit a mighty slow one.  And then it took another 11 days to get to my brother's house 100 miles west of Sydney.  No details on whether its week in Sydney was like its month in Chicago.

The tracker recorded that on July 1, "Addressee not available -- scheduled for another delivery attempt today."  Which apparently never occurred, nor did the carrier leave a note in the box.  After I checked the tracker again my brother went to their local post office and collected the masks on July 8.

When I looked at the USPS website just now, I found pages of alerts from dozens and dozens of countries warning of delays and suspensions in mail delivery.  Australia's, for instance, said "Customers should expect delivery delays."  No kidding.  If you're planning to send anything overseas you might want to send an e-card instead. 

During May and June I was feeling like a chump -- why had I even bothered to make and send masks to a country that had pretty much whipped coronavirus before my package got there.  But guess what, this month they're having a resurgence.  The state of Victoria, where my nephew attends university, is in heightened quarantine.  My nephew, deciding to come home for a while, managed to get on a plane hours before Victoria closed its borders.  And a few days ago a new outbreak in New South Wales, where my family lives, has everyone on alert.  So maybe the masks will come in handy after all.

Masks and the New York Times

After all the masks I've made, the subject of whether you should in fact wear them is always top-of-mind.  I've closely followed the story of whether masks do any good (early word from the medical establishment: don't bother if it's not an N95) and how it has changed.  Now the docs are agreed that yes, we should all wear masks.  Meanwhile, a substantial segment of the population agrees that no, masks are a symbol of tyranny and besides who wants to wear a mask when out having fun in a crowded bar or swimming pool.  Now I'm focused on how you can get the attention of those in the second group, and have become convinced that we're doing it wrong.

A couple of weeks ago the New York Times carried an op-ed piece on wearing masks, which prompted me to write a letter to the editor, and the letter was printed on yesterday's editorial page.

This is the first time in decades that I've had a letter published in the Times and I was interested in how carefully it was fact-checked.  I was asked where I got the 70 percent figure, and I sent two cites (here and here).  But revisiting these articles got me crabby again about how so many people use technical textile terms without properly specifying (or perhaps without even knowing) what they're talking about.

One of the articles cited showed the effectiveness of different materials in blocking 1-micron particles.  The surgical mask caught 97%; on down the line we find a dishtowel at 83%, a scarf at 62%, "linen" at 60% and "silk" at 50%.  I've seen several how-to-make-a-mask articles that similarly cite dishtowels and scarves as good raw materials.

But what is a dishtowel?  Are we discussing a cotton huck weave?  A printed linen souvenir tea towel?  (If so, a cheap one or an expensive one?)  A terry cloth hand towel?  (that's what I use to dry dishes)

Even more confusing, what is a scarf?  The graphic that accompanied the article showed a teeny weeny drawing of a fringed plaid scarf that might be wool, but might just as easily have been acrylic or who knows what.  And if you didn't look at the teeny weeny picture you might think "scarf" meant a cotton bandanna or a silk wrap.  I'm sure the particle-stopping power of those different materials varies hugely.

The second article was far more technical, and measured "different types of cotton (80 and 600 threads per inch)" as well as chiffon, satin, flannel and others.  The 80-thread-per-inch cotton was described as "Quilters Cotton" and I wondered what that was, since 80 threads per inch seems pretty flimsy to me.  It took several clicks through supporting tables and sections to discover that this material was totally unidentified.  While other materials were tagged as coming from Walmart, Jo-Ann or Wamsutta, the Quilters Cotton was N/A.

Interestingly, one of the materials tested in this experiment was a quilt -- two layers of 120-thread cotton with a 90% cotton batting.  As if many people are going to make masks out of a quilt!

I'm sure the scientists who did this research thought they were being highly precise in telling us that the thread pitch of the Quilters Cotton was 460-500 µm, while that of the spandex was 200-480 µm, but what is thread pitch?  Can I use this information to figure out what Quilters Cotton is?  More to the point, how does that help me decide what to use in sewing a mask?

I'm still waiting for some research and direction that combines scientific rigor with information that will help actual sewists make effective masks.  Rather than ask us to cut up a high-thread-count sheet -- and who knows exactly what the thread count is for a given sheet in their linen closet?? -- wouldn't it be better to provide information that would let us buy the right kind of fabric from the fabric store?  Aren't most of the people who sew masks going to be people who will work from fabric yardage rather than cutting up their fancy sheets?

I would like to know, for instance, if it's really better to use batik fabric rather than Kona cotton (I have yards and yards and yards of each in my stash).  Brand names would help.  Terms that we actual sewists actually use in talking to one another and in purchasing fabric would help.  Just because some guy in a lab says chiffon has a porosity of 3% while Quilters Cotton has 14% doesn't tell me whether I should be making my masks out of chiffon instead of the batiks and cottons in my drawers.

Hey, public health people!!  Now that you have told us that we should indeed be wearing masks, help us come up with the best ones to make.  Consulting a person who owns a sewing machine and uses it frequently would probably make for more useful research projects, as well as more useful construction directions.

The good old days of bias tape

In the course of making lots and lots of face masks I had occasion to delve into my stash of sewing notions from the previous century, all of which have been carefully saved because you never know when you might need them.  Indeed, for 30 years I have found no use for inch-wide bias binding, or "quilt binding" as some of it was labeled, because if I wanted to put binding on a quilt I would use actual fabric, and if I wanted to face a hem (as the wider bias was labeled) I would use nylon seam binding (of which I also have a boatload).  But who knew it would be perfect for the ties on face masks!

As I surveyed the whole box full, I noted how the price has gone up over the years, while the quantity in the packet has gone down.  Not all the packets have dates, but the pink one is 1966, the second from the left is 1969 and the yellow one at the right is 1986.  Meanwhile the quality has changed too -- from 100% cotton to 50/50 poly/cotton.   

Surprisingly enough, there has been a whole lot less price inflation in the last 34 years than in the 20 years between the four packs in the photo.

Between 1966 and 1986 the price went up from 6 cents a yard to 63 cents -- a 950% increase!  But from 1986 till today, it's only gone up 57%.  Today the fabric is 55% polyester, which I wouldn't worry about, since poly blends are much more wrinkle resistant than 100% cotton.

As the price was going up, the width of the binding was going down.  The pink stuff from 1966 was a full inch wide, the yellow looked to be about 1/16" narrower, and according to the JoAnn Fabrics website, today's binding, which costs $2.99 for three yards, is only 7/8" wide.

Probably today's bias tape would work just as well for face masks as my wonderful stuff from the past.  But it wouldn't give me the immense satisfaction of using things I bought more than 50 years ago and are still the perfect solution.

And some of it was even on sale!!

Plague diary April 13

I started out the pandemic believing, thanks to diligent research, that fabric face masks weren't effective against viruses.  Then as time passed, conventional wisdom pivoted in the face of adversity and guess what, fabric face masks are wonderful.  So I have been sewing masks for friends and family for a couple of weeks now.

This week PYRO Gallery, the artist cooperative that I am a part of, decided to launch a Go Fund Me campaign to help pay the rent while we're closed.  We haven't been able to open the gallery in a month, and of course don't know when that will end.  The show that was supposed to be up now, in which each of the 18 PYRO artists invited a guest to exhibit, was canceled a month ago.  The show that's supposed to open in early May is probably not going to happen.

And then in mid-June, my solo show is supposed to start, but I don't think the chances are good for that schedule to hold.  (And I'm not sure I want it to... the thought of a big opening reception and gallery talk and workshop is kind of frightening.)

As part of the Go Fund Me, I offered to make face masks as a premium for any donation over $50, and already I have a dozen orders to fill.  So I'm back in the studio sewing.  Decided to upgrade my mask ties from the 1970s bias binding to fancy material, since the masks are advertised as super-duper special unique artist-made, so this afternoon I'm folding and pressing strips while watching trash TV.

If you'd like a super-duper special unique artist-made mask for your very own, we'd be very grateful for your support of PYRO Gallery.  The coronavirus is laying waste to so much that we love, and I hope that our art will survive and prosper when we come out the other side of the pandemic.

Wear your masks, people!!

The good news:  the Easter Bunny is certified virus-free and can visit everyone and go anywhere without fear of spreading disease.  The bad news:  not so for the rest of us.

Wear your masks, people!  The Easter Bunny will still recognize you.

The ultimate mask tutorial, I think

Over the last couple of weeks I have made several masks, each time changing the technique and approach to make the process easier and faster.  Here's my perfected technique for making a mask, although it may improve even more as I do it again.  If so, I'll share my new plans.

Cut two pieces of tightly woven fabric -- I like batik because it's really dense.  If you have a choice between two different kinds of fabric, hold them both up to the light.  The one that blocks the most light is the one you want.  One piece will be 9 inches by 8.5 inches.  The other will be 9 inches by 7.5 inches.  Cut a piece of interfacing 9 inches by 7.5 inches.

Sandwich the three pieces with the large one on the bottom and  the interfacing in the middle.  You will turn the top and bottom edges up and over the other two layers and stitch them in the next few steps.

Fold one edge of the taller piece over the other two and stitch a neat hem.  This will be the bottom side of the mask, under your chin.  If you're feeling obsessive, go back and stitch the seam again, a little ways closer to the edge to really hold that sucker down in place.

You will note that I left the raw edge of the fabric open.  Because batik is so tightly woven, I'm not worried about it raveling.  But if you're worried about your fabric, feel free to turn a tiny hem before you sew down the edge, or zigzag the seam down instead of straight-stitching it.

Find a piece of wire approximately 3 inches long that you can bend to fit tight over the bridge of your nose.  I used a six-inch length of 30-gauge wire doubled in two, but any weight of wire that can bend easily will do.  A twist tie or telephone wire would also work, and I see no reason why any of these can't go through the wash.  If by any chance your wire rusts, so what? 

Turn the mask around and fold over the top side to hem it, just as you did with the bottom side.  Mark the center, which will fit right over your nose.  Hold the wire against the edge and eyeball where the ends will be -- about an inch and a half out from the center.  Mark those places too.  You are going to make a pocket to slip the wire into, just a little bit wider than the wire itself.

Stitch along the folded edge until you get to where the pocket is going to start.  Stitch in and back to make one end of the pocket, then do the same for the other edge.  Keep going to the end of the seam.

Slip the wire into the pocket.  Push it snug up against the top seam.

Stitch the top side once more, this time farther away from the edge.  When you get to the pocket, slow down and be careful that you don't sew into your wire and break your needle.  If the wire has been pushed way up toward the edge of the mask, it shouldn't be a problem.

Pleat the mask so the side is about 3.5 inches tall.  You can use three or four pleats, whichever seems easiest to make.  It doesn't matter if all the pleats are the same depth, but they should all point in the same direction, and try to keep the two sides symmetrical.  You may want to mark the pleat lines in the margin, or you can just eyeball.  You can gently iron the pleats in place, or finger press them, or just pull them taut, whatever makes you feel most secure.  You can pin them in place (pin heads toward the center of the mask, pin points toward the edge) or stitch across the pleats to hold them in place.

I am fortunate to own a lot of one-inch bias binding from the previous century.  If you don't, you should cut some fabric 2 inches wide and make your own binding.  If you have some fabric that's lighter in weight than the batik you used for the mask, it will be easier to work with. 

You will need two 40-inch strips of binding.  If you don't have a piece of fabric that long, you can seam two pieces together.  You can cut straight across from selvage to selvage, or parallel to the selvage; it doesn't matter.  But don't cut on the bias.

Fold the strip in half and press it. 

Open the strip flat.  Now fold each of the edges in again, almost touching the center fold, and press. 

Cut two ties, each 40 inches long.  Mark the center with a pin or pencil.  Fold the two sides together and stitch from one end.  When you get close to the center mark, insert one side of your mask.  Eyeball it so the center of the mask is at the center of the tie.  Fold the binding/tie so it encloses the raw edges of your mask and stitch.  After you clear the mask, continue stitching to the end of the tie.

The mask will fit better if the ties don't extend straight up and down from the mask edges, so pleat the ties and stitch them at a better angle.  The top ties should extend slightly upwards at an angle.  The bottom ties should extend straight out.  Just scribble-stitch across the pleats to hold them in place.

Flip the mask over and look at the front side.  Make sure the line of stitching has caught the entire binding firmly.  You can run a second line of stitching inside the first line to make it stronger.

Inspect the rest of the mask, front and back, and if you see any places where your stitching veered off the edge go back and stitch again to reinforce.  Clip off any dangling threads.  But don't be too precious about it.  These masks are not going to be entered in the state fair where the quilt police would tut-tut your construction techniques.

If you didn't have two colors of fabric, write "inside" on the inside of your mask.  That way if you have to take the mask off and put it back on, you can be sure to put the clean side next to your face.

Now comes the hard part -- you and your loved ones have to WEAR IT!!  Wear it when you go to the store.  Wear it when you go to work, if you still have a job.  Wear it when you go to the park, unless you are absolutely sure there's nobody else in the park with you.  Wear it when you drop groceries off for your mom.  Wear it when you ride on the bus.  Wear it when you pick up hamburgers at the drive-through window.  Wear it when the grocery-store girl brings your stuff out to the car.  Wear it when you open the door for the pizza guy. 

You are protecting yourself and you are also protecting your co-workers and your mom and the bus driver and the pizza guy.  And you should probably even wear it when you read my blog, because I don't want to catch it either.

Wear it in good health!!

  

Plague diary April 7

First off, can we all agree that they have found a really insipid name for a horrible disease?  Nobody even knows how to spell it correctly -- some people write Covid-19, others write COVID-19, some eliminate the capital C, others omit the "19."  It was named by a committee, and who could possibly think otherwise?  The only mystery is why it took the World Health Organization so long to come up with the name.  (Imagine weeks upon weeks of meetings in which they debated endlessly between covid-19 and cordis-20 or maybe even virudi-1...)

In the past, diseases had evocative, easy-to-remember names -- Ebola, Zika, Alzheimer's, legionnaires' disease, Spanish flu -- but now such names are politically incorrect because they might bring stigma on a place, person or occupation.  (Read more about this here; it's fascinating.)  And don't forget, if you name your disease covid-19 maybe people will be so bored that they forget it's a plague and think it's just an acronym for Consolidated Occupational and Vocational Instruction Division or shorthand for Columbia Video.

On the bright side, I am glad that Boris Johnson, the British prime minister, is in intensive care.  Not that I want him to be sick, but I am so tired of all the famous people who test positive, put themselves into self-quarantine in their nice houses and announce that they have no symptoms, they feel fine, they are continuing to work as if nothing has changed.  Tom Hanks and Prince Charles, I'm talking about you.  Rand Paul, whom I'm embarrassed to identify as my own senator, I'm talking about you -- and you weren't even responsible enough to stay out of the Senate dining room and gym while you were waiting for your test results to come back.  (And Rand is even a physician, shame on him thrice.)  Every one of these cheery episodes makes us think that this virus is no big deal

I am glad that Chris Cuomo revealed yesterday that he chipped a tooth from gnashing and flailing, because the pain was so bad one night while he was suffering from coronavirus at home.  Not that Chris Cuomo deserves to suffer any more than anyone else, but it has been too easy to not think very hard about the agonies of the people who are indeed sick, those faceless people on ventilators who die in faraway places like New York City and Detroit, aka Sodom and Gomorrah, not at all like my nice safe red-state home town.

I am glad that at least 30 people who so recklessly attended a revival meeting 160 miles down the road from my home, in defiance of the governor's orders prohibiting large gatherings, have fallen sick so far, and three of them have died. I am glad that at least one of the 20-somethings who went to a coronavirus party in my own city has come down with it.  Not that I want people to get sick, but I want people to realize that their bad behavior has consequences, that this pandemic is worth taking seriously.

And that brings me to my lecture.  PEOPLE, WEAR YOUR DAMN MASKS!!!

In the past I wrote that I wasn't sure masks were all that effective, but now I have changed my tune.  Current research shows that masks are extremely effective in slowing the transmission of coronavirus.  If every person in the US were to wear a mask in public, we could lick this pandemic.  So why are the clerks in the grocery store not wearing masks?  Why are the shoppers not wearing masks?  Why are the dog walkers and frisbee players and runners in the crowded park not wearing masks?  Why are the people riding on the bus not wearing masks?  Why are the guys delivering pizza not wearing masks?  Why are the mail carriers not wearing masks?

And of course, why are the people standing behind the president at the daily dog and pony show not wearing masks, even as they're telling us to do so?  And why is the president telling us that he isn't going to wear a mask, because it wouldn't feel right meeting kings and queens and dictators in the Oval Office wearing a mask?  (No, I'm not making that quote up.)

People, wear your masks.  If you don't want to take 45 minutes to make a mask, or don't have a sewing machine, watch the Surgeon General explain how to make a mask from a T-shirt in three minutes.

Who was that masked man?

My husband was determined to go to the fruit market last week, and I was equally determined that he not do it unprotected.   I made us each a mask with just two layers of tightly woven batik fabric.

Then came the directive/suggestion that we all wear masks in public (good guidance for all of us plebs to follow, but apparently not good enough for the president or all the minions lined up behind him on the daily dog-and-pony show).  I made several more for friends and family.  My son brought me a fancy air filter that is rated effective against virus particles, and thought I could take it apart and use the innards for masks.  Sounded like a good idea, so I proceeded to dissect.

The working part of the filter, which looks a whole lot like loosely packed nonwoven interfacing, is adhered to a grid of metal, because apparently the metal lends some electrostatic properties that help in air filtration.  But the metal is too stiff to be pleated into a mask, so I peeled the fiber away.  This was a slow and not entirely satisfactory process, with a fair amount of fiber left on the grid, and it felt as though the fibers left behind were precisely those with the glue coating, the smooth outer layer that held the whole batch of stuff together.

Nevertheless, I extracted a rectangle of fiber that I put inside the mask.  I made two masks like that, all the while thinking of how I could improve the process.

I concluded that the air filter fiber is the moral equivalent of plain old interfacing, maybe even morally superior because it's more firmly stuck together, and heaven knows interfacing is a heck of a lot easier to work with than this rigamarole with the air filter.

So my second batch of masks contained one layer of batik on the outside and one layer of medium-weight interfacing next to the face.  Since batik doesn't ravel much, I just turned the raw edge over and stitched it down.  This time I pleated the edges before finishing the side seams, and encased the pleated edge in a fabric binding.  This meant way less time in sewing and fiddling.

I also realized that stitching fabric for the ties was taking a lot of time, even after I found a lot of inch-wide bias tape in my stash, probably dating back to the 1970s.  I thought maybe I could substitute tightly woven selvages or ribbon, eliminating 72 inches of seams per mask, but then I thought to look in my stash again and found some sturdy nylon cord that required only knots at each end.

Plan A: sew a pillowcase, with our without inner layer of fiber, catching the ties at the corners.  Turn it inside out, finger-press seams smooth, pleat and stitch.  Counting the seam allowances in there, you sometimes have to stitch through 12 thicknesses of fabric to secure the pleats.

Plan B: turn batik over interfacing at top and bottom edges, topstitch.  Pleat edges, add binding (yes, just like a quilt).  Position cording inside the binding. 

Fold binding over and stitch, making sure to catch the cord in the stitching so it doesn't escape or slide to and fro.  Add a second row of stitching all around the mask. You still have to stitch through 10 layers of fabric, but four of them -- the binding -- are extremely lightweight instead of heavy-duty batik.

After I made four masks with this model, I saw an online report that gave me an even better idea.  Finish and pleat the mask as described in Plan B, up until you need to finish  the short edges.  Cut a piece of fabric or bias tape 36 inches long, center the mask on the binding, and stitch the whole length over on itself just once.  Finish the mask and make the ties, all in one step!  Why didn't I think of that?  So that will be my new plan C.

I would rather be in the studio making art than making masks, but when I contemplate my non-fiber art pals, not to mention my sons, trying to produce masks without even a sewing machine on premises, I think it's time for me to step up and take one for the team.  Perfecting my technique every time I make a new batch.

I'm still not sure what degree of protection these homemade masks offer.  You would think it's a lot more than zero, because even though viruses are small enough to sneak through porous materials, the glob of snot the viruses are riding on should be stopped even by a simple bank-robber handkerchief mask.

If this keeps up for months and months, I fervently hope that some materials scientists and microbiologists will start testing all the different fabrics and patterns circulating out there and tell us which ones work and which ones don't.  Otherwise I'm afraid that millions of sewists will have spent millions of hours making things that make us feel warm and fuzzy but don't actually protect anybody very much.

How to make a face mask

No, this is not a tutorial.  This is a critical review of many tutorials out there.  In times of trouble, sewists are always happy to step up and do something helpful, even if it might not be all that helpful (see my previous crabby posts about sending quilts after earthquakes here or here).  But now there's an opportunity to do something that might even be helpful -- make face masks for healthcare workers who can't get them from the normal supply chain.  The New York Times devoted a full page in today's paper to writing about the phenomenon.

Many hospitals across the country are asking people to sew and donate masks, and many sewists are responding with patterns and tutorials.  I spent a discouraging couple of hours looking at some of the directions and videos out there, and I think a lot of time and fabric is going to be spent in aid of masks that aren't going to be all that effective.  (What a tragedy that the president won't sign an order to mobilize production of masks by people who know how to make masks, instead of expecting us to straighten out paper clips to make shapeable nose bridges.)

First off, there's a huge range of quality being pushed in these directions and tutorials -- and by that, I mean the quality of the mask in actually blocking virus particles.  At the low end, fabric masks that kind of fit sort of snugly across your face, probably a little bit nicer than just tying a scarf bank-robber style.  At the high end, masks made from HEPA filter vacuum cleaner bags that match N95 respirators for efficacy (click here for the video).  In the middle, a whole range of patterns and materials that are probably better than the bank robber approach.

Second, there's a huge range of quality in sewing techniques and directions.

Low end, how about this PDF posted by a hospital in Indiana that begged for masks from the community.  Apparently the sewists figured out how to operate despite these "directions," because two days later the hospital begged people to stop bringing masks and give them to some other place.

I'm not sure what that rectangle at the bottom of the page is supposed to be -- a pattern?  Do you think a diagram or two would help people figure out how to put it together?

I found it interesting to watch how the sewists in the various videos actually sew.  You can sure tell the difference between people who sew a lot, and people who get roped into sitting at a machine to make a video.  In one video made by a hospital, the woman at the machine was sewing elastic into the corners of a mask.  Of course, she had the right sides together and when she neared the first corner, she stuck one end of the elastic in between the layers and sewed it in.  Then when she got to the next corner, she had to reach her fingers in between the layers to fish out the other end of the elastic and get it in position, which took her a painfully long time, since she couldn't see what she was doing.  Guess she hadn't thought to pin both ends in place while everything was in full view.

In a video made by another hospital, they got a young guy from the local maker space to sit at the sewing machine.  He carefully stitched back and forth once or twice at beginning and end of each seam to make sure everything was tight, never mind that in two minutes he was going to secure those seams with another seam crossing them.  And he spent at least a minute carefully snipping off the thread ends from every seam before he turned the mask inside out and sewed it shut, where the thread ends could have happily lived undisturbed forever.

Other tutorials showed good sewing technique but faulty clinical insight.  One sewist said that masks should be made in two colors so nurses can wear the light side out, and then when they go to see the next patient, they can turn it and wear the dark side out.  NO! NO!! NO!!!!  More than 140 people left comments to set her straight -- the two colors enable the nurse to put the mask back on correctly if it has to be taken off for a minute.

Masks seem to come in two general designs.  One is a simple rectangle, with pleats at the sides to gather in the vertical fullness that goes down over your chin.  The other is a "duckbill" -- think a bra cup over your lower face -- that is shaped with a vertical curved seam from your nose down.  The duckbill apparently provides a little more protection but requires a little more sewing.  Some designs have interior pockets that can be stuffed with additional filtering materials, such as paper toweling or tissues.

The good news, according to one of the videos I watched, is that firmly woven cotton alone will filter out about half of the virus-sized particles.  And that regular nonwoven interfacing, sandwiched into a mask, provides an excellent additional filter.

I'm not ready to start sewing masks, although I might make some for my family if things progress badly.  But if I were going to, I wouldn't just grab the first tutorial directions that popped up on my google search.  I'd kick the tires on several before deciding which one would give the most bang for the buck.  And I'd use up some of those beautiful batiks in my stash.  Lord knows, they're tightly woven...