pick pick pick...

No big news.I spent the day picking out the four rows of quilting on the big quilt I took off Millie. I thought there were only 2 but there were 4. Yuk.
Bad news with the cable. We got it today and replaced it on the Quilt Path. No luck. I had to go ahead and order the $500 motor for the 3 year old system. Sigh...
Anyway, I made the masks for the Hospice group. I need to hurry over and deliver them before they leave for there weekend.

Masks sent

I finished the masks for Oregon by noon and got them mailed. The post office allows three people in at a time, and they have red taped areas for each of the three to occupy. All 6 feet apart. The entire place smells of cleaning agents, too. The new norm.
I've been video chatting with my kids and it is wonderful. We did a challenge to each other to list your five all time favorite movies. You know you're getting old when your kids haven't heard of some of your favorites, and I haven't heard of theirs! ha ha. My kids know I have a wicked sense of humor, so they said they were going to look for my favs. 1. Ever After, with Drew Barrymore; 2. You've Got Mail, Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan,3. Mr Blandings Builds His Dream House, with Cary Grant and Myrna Loy 4. Harvey, Jimmy Stewart, 5.Father of the Bride, Spencer Tracy, Myrna Loy (again?!) and Liz Taylor. There are loads of wonderful movies, but these are ones I can watch over and over without getting bored. Ever After is my all time favorite because the cinderella character is so independently self aware. Plus, the prince is dishy!
Here are the masks from today. They will be in Oregon by Friday and keeping people a bit safer.

These are more manly, in case there are men needing a mask.

Lined in white, interfaced and have a nose pinching wire.

Modeling the mask of the hour.

No rain today!! Mr Wazoo spent the entire glorious day outside doing garden clean up and mulching. Spring is near! The phlox is blooming.

Making masks

Boy, there are many tutorials for making masks out there, and I have watched a few. The mask I am making is the more difficult one that fits over the N59 mask. My daughter works in a clinic where they are rationing the masks, so they need the cloth ones to wear over the N59 ones and keep them a bit cleaner. Yesterday, I made 15 of them. Today, I will finish up the 13 I have cut out and get them mailed to Oregon.

The new masks are made with this batik. They are lined with white sheeting backed with non-woven fusible interfacing. They have large elastic hair ties for the ear pieces and a wire between the layers to cinch them to the nose. They are a bit labor intensive, but are the type they need to cover the N59 mask.

The hair ties keep the mask snug to the face without a gap.

Mr Wazoo modeling the man size version, also made with batik.

All ready to mail.

You can see the white lining here.

We had quite a treat to top off a long day. I made brownies yesterday and made brownie sundaes. Yum.

I'm back to the studio today for more mask production. I think some bluegrass music will be perfect for my background noise!

Is a day not quilting wasted?

I spent the day yesterday 'not quilting'. It was pretty weird. My kids have started a quarantined family Marco Polo group. I had never heard of Marco, so my daughter helped me (by text) to get the app on my phone and join the group. We spent most of the day chatting and seeing what each of us is doing. Look for it for your smart phones and set up a little group. It is fun.
I made a huge pot of ham and bean soup for us and did a bunch of paperwork and paid bills. Mr Wazoo tried to understand the insurance and hospital correspondence while making phone calls to customer service for help. His stroke has unleashed a wave of bills and non-bills from the hospital, Medicare and insurance company. I'm glad he had something to occupy him as it rained all day again.
I stayed up until 1:00AM researching Mr W's family on Ancestry. I haven't had much time to keep up with my genealogy lately, so this was a fascinating diversion. His mother's family were like rock stars back in the 1700s in Australia! His dad's family...not so much. They were slave owning, cotton growing farmers in Alabama. Many fought for the confederacy in the civil war. My family, on the other hand, were revolutionary war soldiers, and union soldiers! I guess we have been fighting each other for generations!! ha ha, not just in the living room at Wazoo! Anyhoo, I spent way too much time reading accounts of there heroics of his great-great-great grandmother and her brave journey as a young widow to Australia with her four children.
This morning, I arose to another gray, foggy, drippy day. I need to get in the studio and make 20 or so masks for Carolyn and get them sent to Oregon. Thunder and rain are today's special, so I will get busy and make something useful and cheerful!
Stay calm and stitch on!

A Plea From a Health Care Worker

  

This is my daughter, Carolyn. She is a PA in an urgent care facility in Portland, Oregon. Please listen to what she says and send this to everyone you know and care about.
We have to act responsibly NOW. Our health care workers are in jeopardy of losing their lives because people would rather party and wander the store aisles aimlessly than be serious about a pandemic. Today, I began making masks for her and her associates because our country can't provide them. The greatest and most powerful country in the world and we can't provide appropriate protection gear for the front line health workers. Stay home and sew.  Stay home and bake. JUST STAY HOME!!

Okay, here is what I did at home this weekend.

I am making as many masks as I can with the limited supply of elastic I have. Once again, all the elastic has been swept up by hoarders and I can not get any to keep making masks after twenty. Mr Wazoo has some wire we have cobbled into the nosepieces, and I do have plenty of fabric and fusible interfacing to line the mask with.

This is the type mask health care workers need. The pleated surgical type don't protect  them as well. The ones with a pocket for in insert are moot because there are no masks to insert into the pocket! If you want to make and donate proper masks, I have posted the video to the blog. Disregard her saying the workers would turn it to the inside and wear it some more...they are NOT doing this. Also, add the extra layer of fusible interfacing to the back of there mask pieces to make them more impervious to the airborne droplets.

This is the lap quilt I finished and said I would show to you. It is my go to pattern; 2-3-2-6.

I love the fabric combination!

I free motion quilted it with swirly- whirls.

I free motion quilted it with swirly- whirls.

The ornamental cabbage accidentally bloomed! They are so pretty, I thought you'd like to see them.

Pretty red poppies blooming, too.

Please help them be safe!
No more N95 masks at her clinic.

Tutorial: How to Sew a Face Mask for Hospitals | Coronavirus COV19