Homemade Covid-19 Masks

The Beginning

While I was moving out of my dorm due to the pandemic in mid-March, 2020, was the first time I heard anything about masks.  This was before anyone really knew much about what was happening, and so only a few people were wearing masks.  I remember while I was moving out, I only saw one person wearing a mask, and since it was so early on, my first thought was that they were from an area of the country where cases were more common, or they were more at risk.  My mom had a slightly different reaction.  She immediately assumed that the person was either sick, or they had been exposed, and she was very worried.  After this brief moment of panic from my mom, I heard more about masks from social media and my parents when it was starting to be recommended that everyone wear a mask.

I know that I decided to wear a mask in public as soon as it was recommended, but I don’t remember when I actually first wore a mask, largely because for the first few weeks, or possibly even months, starting in March, I wasn’t even leaving my house.  I had gone home to my parents’ house to finish the semester, and so there was no place I had to be.  It might have been recommended for us to wear masks even when I was moving out of my dorm, but I didn’t wear one then because that was the first I heard anything about it, and also I didn’t have any.  I would guess that I actually started wearing a mask in late March or April, because by that point it was definitely being recommended for safety.  I understood from the beginning, in March, that wearing a mask would be necessary for keeping people safe, so I’ve never had a problem wearing them, but I still found it less than ideal in the beginning.  Since I was staying home almost all of the time in the beginning, I was rarely in a situation where I needed to wear a mask, so when I did have to wear one, I found it extremely annoying.  I wasn’t used to it at all, and it was hard to get used to it, because the times when I wore masks were generally very short and very spread out.  I was also a little concerned about how well they would work, because the only masks I had were homemade.  The stores ran out of medical masks very early on, and so my family used homemade cloth masks instead.  I was skeptical of their functionality because in my mind, they were somehow lesser because they were thrown together at home.  Now I have a whole bin of them near my door.

The first mask I wore was one of these cloth masks that my mom made from fabric remnants that she already had from previous projects.  I still have it, and I wear it fairly often.  It has two layers, and a short piece of wire inserted at the nose area.  The outer layer is a brown and light blue floral pattern, and it was one of the first masks my mom made, so the elastic for my ears ended up being too big.  I have knots tied to made it fit right.

The Musician’s Mask

My mom ended up making an immense amount of masks for my whole family.  I only have a few that are not made by her.  The homemade masks have worked out really well.  My family and I did have to try them on a lot while they were being made so that adjustments to the size could be made, but they are very nice finished.  My mom also experimented with different patterns of masks to find out what would fit best.  My mom also made me several musician’s masks.  I play the French horn, and ensembles went back to in person when we came back to campus, but I needed a mask that would allow me to play.  The masks I use have two overlapping panels that can be pushed aside to allow me to play.  Worn socially distanced from others in the ensembles, the masks at least somewhat reduce the spread of aerosols more than if we had no masks, while still allowing us to play.

My Current (And Favorite) Masks

The masks I have worn most often since March are the cloth face masks my mom made.  They have two layers, and are pleated, so they are essentially the same shape as the blue medical masks.  Most of my masks are made from patterned fabric, so they have become an article of clothing instead of just something for protection.  For a short time during the winter and spring of 2021, I was double masking.  I used a blue medical mask with one of my cloth masks over it.  I did this because cases in the US and especially on campus seemed pretty high, and I was going to classes in-person every weekday.

One of my favorite masks is a cloth mask made from fabric with sunflowers on it.  It was made by my mom, Barb Stucke, likely around May of 2020, in East Aurora, NY.  She used a desktop sewing machine, cotton fabric, and thin white elastic.  There is also a piece of wire, about 2 inches, in the nose area to hold the mask in shape on the face.  This mask is one of the pleated ones done in the same style as the blue medical masks, and it covers the face from the top of the nose to under the chin.  It has two layers.  The outer layer is patterned fabric with a black and gray background, and stylized sunflowers in brown, yellow, and green.  The inner layer is pale green, and the thread used in the mask matches this color.  The mask is sewn all around the edges so the two layers stay together.

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