Mess and Masks

The living room floor is a mess.  There's bits of my nephew's carry case, a baggie of 1½" HST, and a lot of fabric I'm hoping to make into a twin-sized quilt.

I lost far too much of Saturday afternoon researching how to use this fabric my mother gave me a while back.

I had intended to make stack and whack hexies or something along those lines.  But in the end was not happy with any thing I came up with.  I changed gears: let's try a braided quilt.  This quilt has interesting color placement.  My current plan is to make braids of blue, red-brown and beige, picking up the colors of the screen print designs (which are blue, gold and red).  I'm thinking a blue braid down the middle, flanked by the beige, then red.  Or vice versa?  I guess I'll figure that out as I start cutting fabric.

The final product I'm aiming for is a twin-sized quilt.  I have no idea what I'll do with it once it's done!

I counted the baggie of HST on Sunday night: 198 pieces.  They began from a pile of lopped off ends from Sunshine's birds-in-the-air blocks.  So many little triangles I hated to toss out.  Not all of them transitioned to the 1½" squares.  But there's enough to make a 17x17 square quilt.  Or maybe a couple of mug rugs?  So many patterns I could do!  And again - not sure what I'll do with this when it's done.

I've started making masks.  At least a few.  So many hospitals in the area want different requirements, some aren't accepting fabric masks at all.  Some are taking them and stockpiling them, in which I worry they will collect dust and eventually be discarded.  I don't want to do a feel-good project that isn't actually helpful.  Especially when I've read about some excellent 3D printer projects that are creating actual N95 equivalent masks.

That being said, it sounds more and more like the general population should be wearing masks.  I can get behind that!  I dug through my unloved (read that odd or ugly) fabric and uncovered some 1/4" and 3/8" elastic.  I've made four so far and have enough supplies to make another six before I need to replace elastic with fabric ties.

The pattern I'm using folds a single piece of fabric in half to make the two sides (less sewing!).  However, I heard yesterday that it's useful to be able to identify a front and back, so that the mask is off temporarily taken off, it can be put back on the same way out.  This pattern does have a binding on one side, which I plan to do in a contrasting color, to make the front and back more visible. 

Carry case fabric is supposed to come on Thursday.  I'm hoping to get that truly underway this weekend.