It’s crazy how much the world has changed in just under 2 months! I hope everyone is staying healthy and safe during this crisis. This is definitely a challenging time. When I first heard about the mask shortage back in March, I wanted to do my part and help out in any way I could. I saw some other ladies in my soft furnishings workroom group on Facebook were making them and posting tutorials so I quickly jumped on the mask making bandwagon. I have a whole workroom full of 5 year’s worth of leftover fabric that was finally being put to great use! It was amazing to see so many workrooms quickly put their current projects temporarily on the back burner and focusing on making masks to donate to hospitals around the country. We knew how important this was and how desperate nurses and first responders were for these masks. Mask making is a bit time consuming and tedious but it was well worth the effort.

I had many first responders, doctors and nurses reach out to me and I donated hundreds of masks to them. They were driven over by the fire chief in town to Clare Maas Hospital and he said they were extremely grateful. This made me feel so good. I donated to a group home for special needs adults in CT, doctors offices, Kohls, my local first responders, USPS drivers, another hospital in Denville, NJ and sent free masks to all of my close friends and family to be sure they were safe and protected.

Donating masks helped me, personally, during this crisis. It helped me deal with my anxiety. I was so focused, working long hours making masks, that it distracted me from my anxious thoughts and feeling overwhelmed about the current state of the world. Being only about 10 miles from NYC, our small town in NJ has been hit very hard by this virus. As of 4/18, we’ve had 25 deaths here in town and our town is not very big, so I could not help but feel very anxious about the safety of my family. It felt good to put my energy towards using my skills to try to help the cause in any way I could.

A few days ago, I decided to stop making the masks for now, as it was becoming a bit too time consuming and I am still making about 30 shades a week! I need to focus back on my main job. I do see a ton of masks offered now, especially on Etsy! I see so many cool ones too (faces and fun masks etc) and the shipping speed seems pretty quick!

Thanks to everyone for being so patient with our production timing and we hope everyone continues to stay healthy and strong!