By Living Room Realty, March 31, 2020
I’m sure some of you are wondering: are homemade masks even effective against the virus? There’s a lot of conflicting information out there regarding DIY masks – they’re certainly not as effective as an N95 or surgical mask, but they are also way better than nothing.
Some epidemiologists have published op-eds arguing that masks are good, and that everyday people should wear them, not only if they are sick and hoping to reduce the spread of their own germs to others. The inherent issue is that many people who have or will develop COVID-19 are asymptomatic. Those unknowingly sick people could be spreading the virus. Thus, shouldn’t everyone be wearing masks, just in case?!
We’ve been producing masks at home for the past few weeks, and wanted to share some resources and insights if you’d like to join in.
We are basing our masks off a pattern from UnityPoint Health in Cedar Rapids. You can get the PDF here!
Materials needed:
- Cotton weave fabric (½ yard is enough for 2-3 masks)
- Thread
- Double-Sided skin adhesive (we have not been adding this – some health care providers add it on-site)
- 0.3 micron filter (we are using coffee filters)
- Hair ties (2), or additional fabric for straps
- Scissors
Here are some notes from our living room table:
- Here is my favorite YouTube tutorial!
- In a perfect world, everyone would have a serger (AKA an overlock sewing machine). They are the best if you are working with knitwear or any kind of fabric with a little stretch. But not to worry! Any type of sewing machine will work.
- We have been using swimwear fabric on the exterior and a cotton jersey on the interior so it’s nice and stretchy, and we’ve altered our patterns to have the straps wrap around your head.
- We wash & sterilize all the masks then immediately put them in individual sealed bags for disbursement.
We’ve also been shocked by the amount of healthcare workers requesting them. While they aren’t even close to surgical grade, they are still very in demand by folks in the industry. Post them anywhere on social media and I guarantee you’ll be very busy sewing up a storm for a weeks to come!
