Selfish Sewing

10/31 Addition: this was sent to me recently--a group photo of some of the Austin Harmony Chorus who gathered for an outdoor, masked, and distanced get-together. It was at this event that I distributed the bulk of the masks. We gave them a try-out, singing some songs together (despite only having 3 parts in attendance), and we're feeling hopeful this'll be a viable rehearsal option.

I fly out again to Oregon in 2 days. I've been home for most of October, but it wasn't until yesterday that I had the chance to do some sewing just for me, some selfish sewing.

The Austin Harmony Chorus had been playing around with the idea of socially-distanced outdoor rehearsals, but before that idea could realistically advance, we needed Singers' Masks. Guess who volunteered to make some?

These are lined with stiff interfacing and have cable ties inserted to hold the fabric away from the face, allowing you to breathe without the fabric collapsing onto your nose and mouth. You can move your mouth freely and the mask doesn't shift. They're really quite wonderful!

After demonstrating the above prototype during a Zoom rehearsal, it was suggested/requested that some be made with our chorus logo. Well, I have that technology too.

They've been a popular project, especially at the introductory low, low price I was asking as a donation to the chorus. 

In addition to four I was commissioned to make (for a much heftier chorus donation) for a friend,

two more were made for my son and his BFF, both huge fans of Rock Band and RWBY:

I had never heard of RWBY before this project.

Bonnie Hunter's Leader-Ender Challenge blocks kept growing throughout the month.

48 blocks accounted for: 1 is under construction/under the needle, and there's really 11 blocks in one of these pinned-10 bundles. It just didn't make sense to me that I'd prepare kits for 47(?!?) blocks, so I went back and double-counted each bundle.

 

All told, 41 masks were made. I had already given chorus members the deadline of 10/23 to place orders, so yesterday I stitched the final mask stitch, bagged them up (for the members to come by and pick them up), then looked around my sewing studio with an eye toward straightening it up and closing things down for the next couple of months.

The scraps from all those masks could certainly be tamed!

As I cut these down into Scrap-User's System sizes (giving preference to 2-1/2" squares so I could kit more Leader-Ender blocks), it became harder and harder to squeeze the strings into the string bin. All month I've been wanting to just sit and do some mindless sewing--no time like the present, I guess!

I'm playing with some 7"x9" rectangles for the longer strings, with the intent of using up the really short pieces on these 5" squares of 'phonebook pages.

Compared to some, this is an almost non-existent stash of strings. But for me, it represents a couple of days of mindless, contented sewing in my studio, instead of hours spent doom-scrolling. A perfect project to set aside for a couple of months while I'm away, then pick up again without skipping a beat when I get back.

I fly out at 0-dark-30 this Thursday. If I don't "see" you while I'm gone, I hope you all have a healthy and safe rest of the year.