Still Sewing

I borrowed this for someone on Facebook.  Thought it was so funny.

We are still sewing masks.  Right now we are helping to fill and order for 300 for Eastside Christian Church, Milford Miami Ministries for the Backpack Drive.  We have preschool size masks and some adult masks available.  We will continue to make masks as long as we have materials.  HUGE thanks to SOS for PPE for coming through when we were in a pinch.

Please Pick Up

I am almost sure that I have sent a PM through Facebook to each of these names and reminded them to be sure to pick up their masks.  Please pick them up by Sunday.  If they don't get picked up they will go back into the rotation for others.  I hope I am not coming across as angry...we just need the room for more masks now that our county must wear them a mask when we are out and about.  We are getting lots of order and so far we have been able to keep ahead of the game.  We have also been cutting some smaller children's masks.

There are three sewers left in our little arm of sewers and we have been sewing daily for months on end.  So next week we are taking a break and regrouping, cutting masks, cutting elastic, getting our machines tuned up, and getting ready to start up production again on July 19th.  

So please come by and pick up your masks at 1224 Eagle Ridge Road.  They are on the front porch bench.  Can't miss them.

Back In Business

I have had several inquires about the availability of our masks.  Yes, we have them.  Free of charge.  Donations accepted.  All this week will be earmarked for New Life Furniture.

We even have a few for children.

Text me or send a Private Message on Facebook and I will get back to you ASAP.

As always your masks will be in a baggie with your name on it on the bench to the right of the front door.

Stay Safe Everyone

Gearing Up

In my mind, I am thinking that come to the end of summer and when the schools decide to do what is best for us...we might need to get a head start on kid's masks.  So I have made some kits which are on the front porch for any sewers in our Little Army that would like to help start our stockpile.  Or if there is someone out there that needs a mask for a little one, we do have some already sewn.

Precious Notes

Betsy shared this with me today.

I Have A System

Most nights I am up late after the house is quiet.  Mark and Michael have gone upstairs and the dogs are snoring under my feet.  I grab a few pieces of fabric and cut and many 9x6 rectangles as my carpal tunnel will let me.  I stack the rectangles by the machine.  Then I cut whatever we have to use for the pieces that go around the ear.  So that makes two piles on the table so far.

I check the notebooks where I write down every order from the day.  At the end of the night I add them all up so we can keep a somewhat accurate tally of masks that we have given away...so far we have given away 1,784 masks.  1137 of them have been picked up from the porch.  Every night I look at that number and shake my head and smile.

Then when I get up in the morning I begin sewing masks.  When  I finish a pile I turn them and pin in the pleats.  Then they go into a 

pile and I sew a few more.  Once I get tired of that I will sew the ones with the pleats.  I got back to the pile that I just pinned and sew the rest of them.  Then they all get a light press.  And the process begins all over again.  So far it has worked out.  I am up and down filling orders and putting them on the porch.  I try to remember to let everyone know that their masks are ready by a text or PM.  It has been an amazing journey.  I have met some amazing people.  And been blessed by lots of generous people.  And those blessings have been turned around to help others in our community.  Our Little Army has done amazingly awesome!!!  I am thankful.

Shannon's Delivery

She knows me tooooo well!  Chocolate to get me through the day and elastic to make more masks!  She even brought Mark and pack of M&M's too,  Can you guess which one is which?

(She brought elastic but for some reason, double-fold bias tape is in the pic...been a long day and night I guess)

He Does It Again

I get a message from someone's name that I recognize from making masks.  He says he met someone that I need to get in touch with.  He met a lady in the grocery store and she asked where he got his mask.  He told her and she said to tell me that I needed to get in touch with her.  A little bit later his wife sends me a message...same request.  I think I was up to my eyeballs in masks sewing and I didn't stop just them to get in touch with this mysterious lady.  I called her and the rest is history!  

She has a nonprofit organization called SOSforPPE.org.  We are both working for the same goal...providing masks to keep everyone safe.  Long story short.  Mark and I take a little field trip to her driveway.  Inside the tote, this is what I find...a bag with my name on it with elastic, two huge pieces fo fabric and several 3D bias tape makers!!!!  And I think I heard her right that if I need anything else she has it for me!

I know that I shouldn't be the least bit surprised by this because it has already happened countless, countless times during our little venture into mask making.  God always knows our need and he is working on it way before we realize it is a need.  AMAZING!

It's Going To Be A Good One

I look forward to the end of the Sunday message from Eastside when Jay lets us know what organization we will be supporting with donations during the week.  The church thinks long and hard about the needs of our community and how we can serve them.  This week is it an organization that my husband and I have come to love.  The organization feeds, clothes, and provided survival gear to the homeless in the Cincinnati area.  It is an amazing organization and I am thrilled to be helping them this week with your kind donations.

Just a gentle reminder...please pick up your masks from the Pick-Up Bench on the front porch.  It is so full I can't add another baggie!

Special Request

This is a good problem to have but we are running out of space on the Pick-Up bench.

We are sewing as fast as we can to make sure that everyone that wants and needs a mask gets on as soon as they can.  But we are s]running out of room!  If you have gotten in touch with us and requested a mask and have gotten a PM from me with the address, please try to pick up as soon as possible.  Thank you so much.

ISO Pressers

In my brilliant mind, I knew this was going to happen.  1/2 inch double fold bias tape is hard to find and/or expensive.  So I have someone in the army cut 2-inch strips of fabric way back in the beginning.  Now we need some more people in the army to press the 2-inch cut strips into double bold bias tape.  Here are the instructions...

This is the stash that needs to be pressed.

And here is how you do it.  It isn't hard just time-consuming.  Add this to sewing the mask and it takes about an hour to do four where we can do three in about15 minutes if I have everything ready.  So this would be a game-changer.

Press design side down.

Fold each end in 1/4 inch to make a finished end.

(I forgot this step before I did the other folds and had to go back and do it so pretend those creases aren't there.)

Fold in half and press.

This is how it should look on the ends.

Fold one half of the strip to the middle and steam press.

Then repeat on the other side.

 

 

This is how it should look before the last pressing.

Fold the two sides together and steam press one last time.  I pin the two ends and then a pin in the middle to hold things together.  Then they are ready for us to sew.

So if you have the time and are willing to press a few I will have a bin on the front porch labeled 'PRESSERS'.  We would appreciate is and would give you hugs if we could!

Still In Production

I'm sewing from sun up to way after sundown.  So many requests for masks.  I am so glad that people are beginning to understand to make this thing go away we all need to make sure that we are keeping ourselves and everyone else safe.

Our little army keeps chugging along.

Oh, the stories that I could tell.  I am going to tell you some from just today because my mind is running at top speed and I am afraid that I might forget them by tomorrow.

Story One

Just in the last three days, 216 masks have been picked up from the front porch.  There have been headbands and 'extenders' too.  I have used all of my white thread and I believe all of my black thread. The second shipment of 1/4" elastic is long gone.  We have almost used all the elastic hair ties.  I am making 1/2" bias tape from two-inch strips of fabric.  And our fabric is running low even after two generous amounts of fabric that have been left at the door.  We are totally out of men's fabric.  I have used the wrong side of some of the fabric to make the right side of the men's mask.  You do what you gotta do.  It never fails that out of the woodwork someone I don't know have something they want to donate to the cause.  And it is almost all the time exactly what we are needing.  Hmm. Imagine that.  Around here we call that a God Thing.

A lady picked up her masks and then told me her son had made some extenders with his 3D printer.  He made 100 of them.  The shortly showed up on our porch.  His name is Micahel Wilson.  And he tells me that he is making shields also.

 Story Two

My sister-in-law heard that this week our church is donating all the funds from our U>i Campaign to Feed Our Flock.

Since being in Self-Quanatine now for 54 days, Mark has learned to use his credit card and shop online.  He has always known how to do that but now he has mastered the skill.  He now orders groceries online just about every day it seems.  I have threatened to take the credit card away from him because all the pantries are full to overflowing and the shelves in the garage are fully stocked.  We don't have anywhere else to store any more food. Yesterday a box of applesauce came in cute little packagings.  I thought he's just giving something new a try. because he eats applesauce on his oatmeal every morning.  Then a box came with Pop-Tarts and Nutri-Grain bars.  I like Pop-Tarts and Michael likes Nutri-Grain Bars so that wasn't too much off the path.  But I told him that's enough.  Then today came a HUGE box filled with Cheezits, Pretzels, Fruit Roll-Ups, Cheez-Its, Nature Valley bars, Ramen...

We can't figure all this food out.  Mark is in the doghouse and then he gets this look on his face that I can't describe.  He says he knows where it came from...Lisa (our sister-in-law) from St Mary's Medical Center.

Story Three

I am checking on the Little Free Library and I find a note from my friend Alice.  She reads books from the library and then gives me a brief book report.  I love it!  She reads a book then some of them she donates to the LFL.  While I am reading the note she left today a man drives up and asks me if I know where The Mask Lady lives.  Funny, the Mask Lady.  I love it!  I give him two masks and he makes a generous donation.  Amazing!! e blesses me and is on his way.

Everyone has been so generous.  With getting supplies and the leaving donations.  But this one makes me cry...I mean the ugly cry.  

Story Four

I am sitting at the sewing machine and out of the corner of my eye, I see on the RING doorbell a lady searching for her mask package.  I knock on the window and ask if I can help her.  She tells me the name and I give her a general idea when her bag is.  She is still having trouble because the names on the baggies are hard to see.  I crack the door and she immediately backs off the porch.  I help her find it and she begins to tell me her story. She has come all the way from Bethel to gets masks. She has COPD and she is caring for her nephew who has cancer.  Her mom is ill also and she is taking them to all their doctor appointments and only has the mask that the dr gave her a few weeks ago.  She has been wearing the same paper mask for weeks.  I immediately go back into the house and get her three more (the last masks in our stockpile).  As she is walking down the sidewalk she says back to me that she will be back to give me a donation when her SSI check comes in.  But she did leave an envelope.  She apologizes all over herself for not leaving more.  Oh, this would have been a great hug!  It reminds me of the story in the Bible about the widow and her last mite.  I will never forget it!

Those look like Laundromat quarters to me.

Today has been a very emotional day for me.  I am drained!  I pulled a  pitiful grandma a bit ago.  I got on Marco Polo and kinda, sorta, maybe begged the Wammyville parents to bring their kids by so we could see them.  You know the one where the grandma is all teary, can hardly talk, and asks to see the grandkids/yahoos because she misses them so.  I did it.  I'm guilty and the plea is so pitiful and it is not pretty.

Special Mail And It Wasn't For Me

I have a friend in CA and her name just happens to be Jan also.  We like to do some of the same things...reading, taking walks, dogs, quilting, our kids and grandkids...we've met in person once while she was in Cincinnati on a Baseball Tour.  She is so kind to think always of others.  She had read on Facebook that my friend Deb was having a hard time with her mask because of her hearing aid.  So a package comes to my house for Deb.

The Army Grows and Grows

We have lots of masks available for FREE!  We'd love you and yours to have one to keep us all safe.  We have them made with 1/4 inch elastic and elastic hair-ties around the ears.

We also have a hospital tie style.

We were running low on masculine fabric and a lady that came to the porch to pick-up masks suggested using men's shirts.  It wasn't much later that she brought three of her husband's shirts back for me to try.

We are also trying to help out with the pressure from the elastic around the ears with headbands.

Cutting fabric and getting ready to sew.  I will be sewing a little bit of everything today.

I have a little bit to report.  I first want you to know how blown away I am by all the sweet people there are that have joined our little army.  If there is ever a need someone brings it to the front door.

The total number of masks made that I know of: 1267

The total that has gone off the front door: 498

I just don't even know how to tell the next part of our story.  We have never asked for anyone to pay for a mask or a headband.  We have never asked for anything in return but donations have come in, in a way that is so hard for me to talk about.  I cry every time I try to tell someone the story.  And the story needs to be told.  There is so much good that is coming out of all this craziness and it is the good in people.  Tokens of appreciation have been left on the bench on our front porch.  Things like cookies from Pop's Donuts that look like someone with a surgical mask on, flower arrangments, sweet notes of thank you, and donations.  One week we collected $450.00 that was donated to the First Responders Fund at Eastside Christian Church for their You Are Greater Than I Campaign.  Each week there is a designated organization that we will be helping with what donations come to the porch.  Last week our donations ($160.00) were designated to help Milford First Church of God which just lost their pastor.  This coming week all donations will be earmarked for Feed Our Flock.

Feed Our Flock Milford Ohio

FEED OUR FLOCK

MILFORD, OHIO

Helping our community by relieving poverty, facilitating access to wellness and tending to the care of the kids of Milford.

WISH LIST

---

High School Pantry Needs

small slim jims 

graham crackers (boxes with small snack size packs)

crackers, club, ritz (boxes with small snack size packs)

snack size peanut butters

snack size Nutella packs

pop-tarts (all flavors)

granola bars (Cliff bar type or crunchy)

fruit roll-ups

breakfast type bars- (all flavors, cinnamon, berry..)

snacks (small bags pretzels, Chex mix, cheez-itz)

Elementary Backpack Food Program

Monetary donations $$

Food wishes:

mac & cheese

canned pasta

ramon noodles

fruit cups/ applesauce cups/squeezes

poptarts

granola

So if you need a mask we have them and we would love for you to have one.  Wear you mask, check on your family and friends, remember social distancing and stay safe.

Buttons, Buttons. Buttons

I ask for buttons and boy did we ever get buttons!!!

All the way from WV for someone I don't even now.  We have lots of mutual friends but have never met.  Then I got a bigger box today!  We are so good on buttons.  Thank you so much!!

From Grandmaw's button tin.

And from Amazon...thanks Jim K.

Button Sewer-Oners

Today we are recruiting people that can and want to sew on buttons to the headbands for the healthcare professionals who are trying to deal with the elastic 'eating' their ears.  After wearing masks all day sometimes the tops of the ears are bloody and very painful.  The headband with buttons on the sides helps alleviate that pressure.  I have found that I can cut a pattern and serge it in record time.  What takes time is adding the elastic for the back and sewing on the buttons.

So if you want to join our army, come by the porch and pick up a few headband kits.  There are gallon size with five headbands or there are single ones it that would be more like what you were thinking.

FYI...The most amazing thing happened last week.  Maybe I should say one of the amazing things that have happened since we started our little army of mask makers.  We make the masks from donations of people from thread, fabric, elastic, buttons...whenever there is a need we have just put it put there and the things start pouring in.  We give them away free.  The amazing this is that from donations that have been left on the porch we were able to donate $450.00 to the First Responders Fund for Milford/Miami Township through Eastside Church.  I am blown away!!!  God sees our needs and he provides then 10 fold.  Thanks to all the angels out there!

A Little Bump In The Road....

I was going great guns.  I was finding material to use for male masks.  I was sewing masks, I was starting to make some headbands and then this happened.

See that cute little iron.  It s really hot.  And it seems that the longer you leave it on the hotter it gets.  I know this because it felt like lava was melting the spot between my fingers and down into my palm.  OMG!!!   I guess I just forgot it was on and when I got up from the serger I put my hand right on it!  GEEZ LOUISE.  

Mark made me hold it in warm water for 20 minutes which seemed like a lifetime and then he put Aloe Vera on it and wrapped it.  And now I am trying to sew, eat, type, do everything left-handed.  HA HA!

My Cousin Sent Me This

We have never asked for anyone to pay for a mask.  We make them because it is what we can do.  It might seem like a little thing to some of you but it is a big thing for us and to the people who will wear them.   People have donated, fabric, shoelaces, bias tape, elastic, hair ties, their time looking for supplies, their time cutting fabric, their time sewing, and prayers.  We never ask for money but donations keep showing up on the Pick-Up Bench on the front porch.  Those donations will be gong to the First Responders in Milford/Miami Township.  We are so grateful and blessed by so many.

Our Little But Mighty Army...you make my heart so very happy!

Nurse Headbands

This is our model, Abby, sporting her mom's headband.

This is the headband that Ms. Jenny dropped off today.  He had made some for her daughter that is a nurse.  She dropped off masks and headbands that she had made out of the blue!  And her to the Army.

This is the pattern that she went by to make hers.

This is my first try.  

My second try was with the serger.  Way faster for sure.  And I think I can tweak it one more time and then I'll be able to make them really fast.  The longest part is going to be sewing the buttons on by hand.

I am in search of one-inch buttons.  My stash is gone.  I have put a feeler out there and I know that tomorrow buttons will be sitting at my door.  That is how everything has gone so far.  I  put it out there and then just leave it up to God and He works it all out.  No problem!

Mask Models

Jeremy made masks for the kids.

Abigail fashioned her some cool headgear after her Mom.

And then I saw this.  Jeremy and Mark collaborated on this masterpiece.  I love it.  Thanks a million.

I hope everyone that has been part of the army knows how important you are in this 'war' that we are fighting.  This mask maker thanks you from the bottom of my heart for your willingness to help and your never-ending generosity!  

I hope youTube will let us keep it and I hope Fiddler On The Roof understands why we need it.

This is priceless!