Enjoying a New Lockdown Occupation

This last week I've been enjoying a new temporary volunteer position, as a sewing machinist. By way of explanation, a neighbour put out a request on our WhatsApp group late last week, for fabric to make drawstring scrub bags for hospitals. As a consequence, I offered my services to make some bags, (which help to prevent cross contamination in transit), which were gratefully received.

I was told that the bags were approximately pillow sized and drawstring, so on Saturday morning I got out our wallpaper pasting board and set it up on our bed as a cutting board. 

I proceeded to pull out suitable fabrics from the fabric I was going to donate anyway (after decluttering the sewing room) and some from my massive stash and then I cut them to size. I ended up with a pile of about 35 bags cut out. I proceeded to sew as many as I could at my newly decluttered work station in the sewing room. You can see the pile of cut out bags to the left of the sewing station.

I finished about 21 that day, and then stopped, as I was conscious of the noise from my sewing machine disturbing my neighbours on a weekend, at least one of whom is an NHS employee and probably enjoys peace and quiet on their days off.

I already had some cord for the drawstrings which I had picked up from a charity shop way back, and rarely have occasion to use and serendipitously, once I'd cut it to size, I had the exact amount for the bags I'd cut out.

Probably the most difficult part of making the bags, was creating the loop through which to feed the cord, but I got it down to a fine art after a couple of attempts, in order that they looked neat and well finished and this made threading the cord through with a circular knitting needle very easy.  I threaded the 20 or so I'd made whilst watching TV that night.

On Sunday, I did the remaining dozen or so and cut out more, as I've got plenty of fabric to use up,  I was running out of cord though, so I had to get a bit creative with what I used.  I raided my ribbon jar for ribbon and lace, which I used on a few of the bags and I found some shoe laces and other alternatives from around the house. I may actually try to make some drawstrings using fabric if I can't find anything else to use.

Yesterday I completed all the bags I'm going to do and I'd made about 70.  I'm hoping they'll be okay, as I did have a bit of trouble with the tension on my machine. It feels good to do something potentially useful and utilise my ridiculously large stash at the same time.  This alone has used almost 35 metres of fabric or thereabouts. What better way to use it and there's still so much more in my stash for me to use for projects, it's crazy. 

I've deliberately tried to use some colourful and uplifting fabrics in the mix.  Here's a picture of some of the finished ones. I ironed them all this afternoon and boxed them up ready to take to my neighbour.

After giving up on the bags for the day last Saturday, I proceeded to try to make some fabric face masks for when I return to work and need to use public transport.  These were a lot trickier and take up to an hour to get right because of all the folds you need to make in them. I've tried to devise a more efficient way to make them than the original one I made a few weeks ago, from which I realised that only thin elastic, less than 4mm wide stops your ears sticking out. I've just ordered some more on eBay. Here's a picture of one I made:

It has different fabric front and back so you don't put a dirty mask back on the wrong way. I need to make quite a few more in the next couple of weeks, which I should have time to do now I've finished the voluntary project.

It was interesting to see that eBay are now selling hundreds of handmade fabric masks.  When I was looking on the site before the lockdown, there was very little choice, but now the market is flooded with them, which is a good thing, as many people will be making them to earn money to help them get through the financial devastation of the lockdown and many people will be looking to buy them for going back to work.

As a consequence of the above, this week has been quite a busy one, plus the fact that OH has started to decorate this week, but I'm really enjoying myself. I have rediscovered my sewing mojo and it feels great to know that lots of fabric is finding a good use and not sitting in drawers unused. It's funny isn't it how as soon as you start to declutter an area, you find a reason to use the items it holds. I love the serendipity of that.