I told you I'd let you know....the rest of the story (at least for now)

Each week as I think about the blog posts, I usually have an idea of what I want to write about every day. In other words, I make a plan of what I will do which day - or at least I try to.

I had a plan to show you another finished quilt today - Saturday. But I changed my mind.

I decided that since I showed you finished quilts on Monday and Wednesday and a new top on Tuesday that I didn’t need to do yet another one on Saturday. I’ll save it for next week. I have a few more quilts that are finished. The only reason I’ve not shown you is that the patterns aren’t written up yet. Sigh.

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What I have been doing this week is making masks again!

I was able to get this cording and the cord stoppers and the zipper bags at our local findings store. (where I get thread)

Let me explain….the rest of the story (for now)

I told you I’d let you know what happened about the other hospital where I made masks for the psychologists who worked at the children’s mental hospital in our town. Well, she didn’t really get back with me on Messenger right away, but she posted on her own page and I think her Instagram. It looked like this: (We have had contact via Messenger since then - I asked her if she needed any more.)

What she is saying is that while they’ve been wearing masks, these masks made by me will make their time a little happier.

So, yes, she was quite happy with it. She tagged our Facebook page - even though I never told her anything about being part of Quilted Twins. It’s not too hard, actually! I still don’t know how she figured it all out. But since our contact was via Messenger, it probably wasn’t too hard.

But that’s not all.

I was perusing through the quilted twins email - which has become my job by default (Rachael really doesn’t have much time at all!) looking at the customer service questions, problems, order issues.

I was reading along looking for the easy questions to kind of clear out the emails - the ones that get asked frequently, and I started reading this one and it said something about seeing some masks that we had made for a hospital, and such.

I was in slow motion, I guess, and then it dawned on me that this email letter was originating from here in Poland!

It was so weird.

It is part of my life that is usually very divided - people don’t write emails in English from Poland to customer service at quilted twins. At least not normally!

Sometimes the table gets pretty messed up. But here you can see the nose wires - the ones I used as removable. My husband loaned me the wire cutters you can see to the right of the picture.

Made my head hurt! (I’m exaggerating).

She went on to explain that she had seen the masks there in our town (Jozefow) and the children really liked them. She asked if I could possibly make them some as she works at a different hospital in Warsaw. She mentioned that when the children saw the animals instead of the normal scary plain white or blue masks, they were less scared - they liked them!

So how can a person resist that kind of request?

Maybe lots of people.

But not this person.

I did find this style very fast to put together.

Took me a while to get the hang of putting on the cord stoppers more quickly, though. I fought them for quite a while - started using “Scotch” tape to wrap around the ends so they would stick through the hole in the stopper - so I could grab the end of the tape and pull it through

“Of course,,” I wrote back. “How many do you need?” She said that they have 15 doctors in their department in their hospital in Warsaw,

I figure - this is really the least I can do - my children were healthy, generally speaking - certainly didn’t need to be lying in the neurology department of a hospital anywhere, PLUS she deserved some reward for finding out how to write me! She did some research just to find out HOW to contact me. (More than a lot of people writing the questions in to customer service, I will add - they often ask things that are on the website, in the FAQ or could be found with a quick “search” using the search feature! Of course there are many who have questions about things that very individual to their situation as well!)

So, this week I’ve been applying myself, when I could, and made 107 masks for them. I know that many of you can make that many in one or two days, but I can’t. I’m just not that fast.

I am not sure why…just is taking me longer. Maybe if I didn’t pin as much and winged it more, I’d be faster. AND I might have done that if it weren’t for a hospital.

Why? Well, I’m hoping that, like nurses in the states who wear fun scrubs in the children’s ward, they will continue to use these masks as long as possible - and not just “right now”.

I made the style that craftpassion.com had that I mentioned before, but this time I ventured into adding the removeable nose wire. I had been able to pick up some floral wire (coated) at my local findings shop (where I buy thread) and used it for these. Then made some with a filter pocket and no interfacing plus a nose wire.

Then, I made a square looking one that was stated to be “nurse approved”. I also used wire for that, but by this time, I was able to make my way to a garden shop and find some really nice, soft wire that could be sewn into the top of the mask. The sewing of that one was super simple and yes, it is quite comfortable.

It took me quite a while to trim off all threads, put in the wires, and the ties in one of the styles (the other styles had ties sewn on during construction), put on the cord stoppers, and bag them all up with their labels, but in the end, I was super happy with how they looked.

I made three kinds - the rounded kind with bias tape ties on the left, the square-ish ones with cording in the middle and the ones on the right with cording and stoppers and a rounded nose area.

I was able to give them 32 of one kind, 32 of a second kind and 43 of the third kind. The doctor stopped by this evening to get them. I feel very blessed to be able to help them. None of my kids had to be in a hospital for really anything very major except my oldest when he was born. Certainly not like anything these kids have to be there for - the neurology department of the biggest children’s hospital in Poland.

And while I was slow at making them, I do believe they are all well made and should last them a while. I hope they find them helpful and fun!

When the doctor first told me where she worked, I didn’t recognize the name of the hospital. I just thought it was a hospital for children in downtown Warsaw. But she had given me the address and name (in English). Finally tonight I looked it up and wow - it is the largest children’s hospital in Poland! I didn’t recognize the English name! It isn’t all that far from us. About 20 minutes.

Yes, I’ve been there.

The community choir our children were in had a concert there years ago, PLUS I’d been there with other people - can’t say I remember why. I think I was with someone. It’s all a blur.

Anyway…I am so grateful to be able to help this group. I’ve not been making masks just for something to do, because now in Poland we seem to have lots of masks. What we don’t have a lot of, though, is this very cute novelty fabric that I have.

I have a lot of what is “cut offs” from a scrubs manufacturing plant. At least that is what I think it is. The fabric is very high quality and bright colors and just adorable! And some of it has a selvage that says something about scrubs. The smallest mask pattern that I have can be cut out of almost all of those leftovers. I think it is perfect!.

I did add cording and cord stoppers to my masks this time.

I believe these are the best I’ve made to date!

And now you know the rest of the story.

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I thought I’d take the time to summarize the three styles - so you can see them - front AND back without being in the plastic bags. I have these in my house - they are for me or for other people I have in mind. For us - we are required to cover our noses and mouth if we are in public places. REQUIRED. So everyone needs masks - though you can use whatever you have. That’s 37+million people in Poland who need at least one mask. Probably more.

The first two types have been washed and dried and then they finished drying on the drying rack. The last one - I washed the fabric first. I did not wash the finished mask. I didn’t make these planning on showing them to the world. :) But I have them and they show each type well.

Type 1 - the rounded kind with bias tape ties and removable nose wire - I used sew in interfacing - no filter pocket:

Type 2 - the rounded kind with a removable nose wire, cording, cord stopper, no sewn interfacing but a filter pocket for people to put their own filter in.

Type 3 - one that is called mostly square-ish before being pulled up into by using the cording. It is a rectangular piece of fabric, with sewn in nose wire and filter pocket/lining which is the gray fabric. It ends up being 3 layers of fabric - not just two as a lot of masks - without any filter -

I used a very soft bendable (mostly a plastic of some kind) garden wire I found the other day when I went out after over a month of staying very close to home - and corded ties, and cord stoppers:

Hope those photos help. Last time when I made masks, I didn’t use any nose wires - but everywhere I have read says they are very helpful!

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And yes, I’m curious if anyone will contact me from a different department of the hospital. I’m not making them without being asked.

What do you think? Will word get out that I made the neurology department masks and will someone else ask for some? (I’m kind of prepared in that eventuality - I have probably at least 50 already cut out.)

Let me know what you think…do you think I’ll be contacted again by another group about making them masks?

Have a great day wherever you are reading this!

Stay safe!

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Be sure to check out what my sis has for you in the store!

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