Who is That Masked Woman?

This is old news, but the 2020 Houston Quilt Festival has been canceled.  I am sad about that, but it was a wise and inevitable decision considering the cooties who would just love to come along for the ride.  And even though quilters are the most giving, sharing people in the world, Covid-19 is not what you want to be sharing with others. 

It took me a long time to get started quilting after the pandemic began.  I was in a funk for a while, watching news, trying make the new normal apply in our high-risk household.  Grief is a treacherous but necessary thing, I think, and we all have to come to terms with it in our own way.  I haven't lost a friend or loved one to covid, but almost two-hundred thousand people have.  Our country is so divided, we can't even agree to wear masks. 

I made a bunch of masks.  It helped me deal with the grief of what was happening. And when I felt out of control, I would just make another mask, because I could at least do that.  My mask-making partner, Dorothy helped me keep it all together.  (Alias: my mother who I call Dorothea, though, I am not sure why??)  We mailed out packages of them for family members and we made most of them for hospice workers.  I would deliver them to a vacant church parking lot, leave them on the concrete and get back into my car.  My friend would then get out of her car and pick them up.  We felt like drug dealers.

I learned a lot.  When I make more, I will make them differently.  Dorothea has trouble tying them with arthritic hands.  I have recently found some elastic that has button holes in the width that you can attach of and on to a button sewed on one side.  

I just saw a post on Facebook that said Burn Your Mask.  I am sorry that people are so affronted by an effort at self-preservation and other-preservation.  People are dying.  You wear a mandated seat-belt for self-protection.  Stay home as much as you can and social distance when you go out.  Wash your hands and wear a mask.  We're all depending on you.