It’s been a little while since I’ve updated the blog, because I’m still slogging away on another little project. I started out planning to sew a couple of cotton face masks for me and my husband, despite having a mild cognitive impairment. And a rare disease that makes using my right hand a challenge.
That turned into a design challenge, as I ended up creating more than ten prototype masks to finally come up with one that would fit properly. Then decided to make masks for our elderly fathers.
Then for my sister and her husband, because they were delivering groceries to elderly members of the local Air Force Association – of which the three of us are members.
From there, my planned ‘little project’ grew to sewing face masks – each one a gift – for members of my extended family across Canada and into the United States. I’m hoping to be finished by this time next month, for a total of about eighty-five masks! Two masks each, one ready to go and one being washed, for almost forty-five people.
All this on a sewing machine that has to be at least thirty years old, a little portable one that I usually use while standing at the kitchen counter. That’s where I’m sewing in this photo, standing at the kitchen counter while my husband does some work at his computer – on our dining room table!
Speaking of my husband, he told me a few days ago that I should double my count, to one hundred and seventy masks. Why? Because I make each one reversible, with two different layers of ‘finished’ fabric.
Either way, 85 or 170 of them, it has been a challenge to make this many masks. Having a cognitive impairment means that I’ll sometimes forget how to do something (like blind-stitching a seam) even though I just did it a few moments earlier.
It’s frustrating, because I used to be such a detail-oriented person; I was the go-to person at work, for reading and interpreting complex policies and procedures – often writing them myself. But now, well, now I have trouble remembering how to sew a straight seam sometimes. Something I’ve been doing for almost forty years!
At the same time, each time I finish a mask I feel so proud of myself; for keeping going. Each of these little cotton masks represents a victory; over the pain of Complex Regional Pain Syndrome, my rare disease, and over the ‘mild cognitive impairment’ that it has caused.
I’m doing my own little part to keep my loved ones safe, by making masks to help limit the spread of COVID-19 in our communities. And you know what? That’s something I really can be proud of ‘-)
As always, thank you for stopping by. I hope that your day includes at least one little victory, something to celebrate – each and every day!