Sewing tonight for my librarians, who are getting ready to go back to work-in-the-library instead of work-from-home, whenever the governor decides we’ve entered phase 3. It could be as soon as June 1 (limited service, checking out items placed on hold, for example, no patrons hanging out in the library), which means they need masks pronto.
This morning, I spent a few hours cutting, and tonight after the kids went to bed, I spent a few hours sewing in elastics. These masks aren’t done yet — they still need to be pleated and have nose pieces attached, but I should be able to get that done in the next day or two.
We have 146 staffers at our three libraries (not all librarians, but all of great value to our community). I’m not saying I’m going to sew a mask for every single one of them before this is over…but I might. At least one from each of my fabrics, so hopefully they’ll have some fun picking out which ones they want. (This is about half of the fabrics I have on hand.)
I mean, our library can budget to buy them masks, of course, and will do so for any I (and one of the other trustees who is also sewing!) don’t manage to produce. The director will make sure staff go back to work protected. Thankfully, we seem to be past the phase when elastic couldn’t be had for love or money.
But I admit, I am feeling personally protective of our library staff, and maybe even a little superstitious about ironing a little good luck into each of these. This is not what I expected I’d be doing when I ran for office, but we serve how best we can; right now, this is where I have a useful skill. Thanks to those of you who bought masks from me — each purchased mask funds a donated mask, so this week, you’re funding protection for our librarians.
Don’t worry, I’ll also be virtually Zooming in for tomorrow’s monthly board meeting. I won’t even try to sew through it. 