terror in the morning, socially distant visit, mask tutorial

Sunday morning (4/5), three of the worst hours of my life (and Michael’s too!!)  Lucy slept on the bed with us all night…in the morning, Ethel was nowhere to be found.  I had barricaded the stairway to the basement in order to keep the kitties on one floor….and my mind kept telling me that there was no way a kitty jumped over that 3 foot high barrier and landed on the stairs several steps down….but there aren’t that many places to hide upstairs….so finally downstairs we went.  There are LOTS of places to hide downstairs…and we searched them all…and we searched again…and we went upstairs and searched again.  After 2-1/2 hours of looking in every nook and cranny…..my brain spoke up and said ‘‘maybe somehow Ethel ran outside when I took the dog out for the last time’’.  Michael went out and searched around our house….I went out and searched around our house….we both searched inside the house again!  This is where dogs have it over cats….all we have to do is shake Cookie’s treat bowl…and she comes running from wherever she is….cats do NOT come when you call them….even if you have food.  Finally, I sent out an email to everyone on my theatre list to be on the lookout for her, and Michael and Cookie set out to search the neighborhood.  I put food and (dirty) clothes out on the front and back porches (thx for the suggestion Mary Ann!!)  and continued to do a circuit upstairs and down….looking in vain for Ethel.  Finally on the umpteenth search, I pushed aside all of the clothes on the lower racks in our bedroom closet….THANK GOODNESS for the blue cone collar or I still never would have seen her…buried in a pile of black clothes in the very back corner of the closet!!!!!  I RAN to the kitchen to call Michael….also called Lynn who was out searching….and then ran downstairs to send out another email.  By the time Michael came home we were both crying….and immediately gave Ethel her morning pain meds (I wonder if she would have stayed in that closet all day?) and also carried her out to try to get her to eat.  Both Lucy & Ethel had hearty appetites this morning……I am SO GLAD!!!!  After that I felt pretty useless…and Michael said he might have to start drinking early to get over the stress of the morning :~), but I finally headed downstairs to try a prototype for a mask.  I had company for the short time I was down there:

Lucy

I didn't get very far before it was time to leave for a lovely afternoon of socially distant spinning and knitting:      

Pam

Rosalie

We sat on Rosalie's back patio and spent several lovely hours talking and working.

When I got home, I finally put together my re-usable disinfecting wipes.  I ripped twelve 10 inch squares of fabric and got them washed.  They were then folded into quarter squares and saturated with hospital grade disinfectant and placed in a quart zip lock bag:  

I thought this fabric was appropriate 'cause we're ALL gonna need a
little  luck as well!

We will carry this any time we go out and use it to sanitize anything we have to touch (as well as our hands).  Once a wipe is used once, it will go into a gallon bag to be brought home, washed in hot water, and re-saturated with the disinfectant.  I’m trying to do our part to not use paper towels (which also disintegrate so easily!!)  

Michael and I had a quick dinner and then I got back to working on masks.  My design has gone through literally 12 iterations in my head before I even cut out anything.  I finally worked out the last bit of how I wanted to attach the lining on the way over to Rosalie’s for spinning/knitting.  It was definitely the BG/Mary Jo method on this as I wanted to make sure one worked before starting mass production :~).  Here’s how it happened:  

I cut a 9 inch strip of fabric

fused interfacing to it as they have now said that adds a good layer of protection from
the larger droplets of a sneeze or cough

sub-cut into 7 inch by 9 inch rectangles

pleated my fabric.  Janice was having trouble getting her pleats even
so we did a quick SKYPE session and I showed her an easy way

basted down the pleats

cut out my flannel lining (something soft against your face)

attached the lining

trimmed the mask

made my ties

voila

and again

Attaching the ties was a pain, partially because my machine will not go in reverse....I may start adding the ties with my featherweight!!!

By then it was after 9 PM and I was beat.  I headed upstairs to spend time with my honey...mask mass production starts tomorrow!

And have you seen the latest on FB???  Hope it makes you smile:  

Just be careful because people are going crazy from being in lock down! Actually I've just been talking about this with the microwave and toaster and we all agreed that things are getting bad. I didn't mention anything to the washing machine as she puts a different spin on everything. Certainly not to the fridge as he is acting cold and distant. In the end the iron straightened me out as she said everything will be fine, no situation is too pressing. The vacuum was very unsympathetic... told me to just suck it up, but the fan was more optimistic and hoped it would all soon blow over! The toilet looked a bit flushed when I asked its opinion and didn’t say anything but the door knob told me to get a grip. The front door said I was unhinged and so the curtains told me to ........yes, you guessed it .....pull myself together