Last night, Kavi was gathering together her stuff for returning to in-person school. She needed a mask and a back-up mask, which you would think would be easy enough as we have a whole bin of masks I’ve sewn in the front entryway. But those are all in ‘fun’ fabric patterns (dragons! space! flowers! monsters!) and Kavi is very neutral in her presentation these days, so she wanted a neutral mask.
No problem — I had picked up a five-pack of masks at Old Navy at one point, all plain neutral fabrics. And she was happy to take those, because she said they were more comfortable than any of the others. Her saying that reminded me that oh, yes, there was a reason I only used those masks for very casual use, like working in the front garden — they’re just one layer of thin cotton, so of course they’re comfortable. They’re also very little protection, as a result.
So that’s what I was doing at midnight last night — adding filter fabric and a second layer of cotton and a nosepiece to two Old Navy masks, so she could wear masks that went with her neutral aesthetic, but which were actually reasonably protective for someone who’d be sitting next to other people (6′ apart for now ) for a few hours. (They’re coming home for lunch and working asynchronously in the afternoons.) It took about 15-20 minutes each; it would’ve been easier to make a new mask from scratch, if I’d had a neutral fabric for her. Guess I should buy some neutral fabric.
Glad I can sew, glad I wasn’t too tired to do that at midnight, no, child, I have no idea what you did with your backpack at the end of last year, if your room wasn’t a pit, you might find it buried there, but here, take this one for now, it’s fine, and oh yes, we’re supposed to do temperature check and self-certification before you go in, let’s get that in at the last minute (hopefully in time), and no, we don’t actually seem to own a ruler, this tape measure will have to do – and off she goes.
Kavi’s so happy to be back in person, I can’t tell you.
