Well, tickle me pink… there are small quilt shops selling cottons by odd bits and half yards on eBay AND they ship so much faster than the well known fabric and big box stores.

I got frustrated trying to buy fabric online. I thought I could do curbside pick-up during state shutdown orders, but darn near everything I clicked on was not available at my local fabric store and then, after narrowing choices down by viewing only “ship to home” options, everything I liked required a minimum purchase of two or four yards. So much for being able to select a nice variety. That also makes costs a little steep at 9 to 14 per yard, but they had quilt fabrics marked down to 5 or 6 a yard so I selected a few anyway. Unfortunately, other shoppers were also shopping the same sales so several items were sold out before I could check out and then, after I paid, two of my four purchased fabrics were cancelled via email as an oops, sorry, out of stock… bump hours wasted trying to buy fabrics, so I went looking on eBay. Of course, the stores may have opened by now but I’m high risk (old, disabled) so I’m not going anywhere.

I’m still waiting for all the thread and fabric purchased from Joann to arrive. I’m also waiting on elastic ordered from Walmart, too. In the meanwhile, I’m sewing up the eBay fabrics… which, of course, I washed to pre-shrink the cotton before cutting. Birdies first, because we can use some baby blue birds of happiness.

Yes, I’m making masks for children… plan is to donate a nice assortment to a local organization, then sell off the rest to offset cost. It is a simple mask, just two layers of fabric, no nose wire or anything inside. I’m making 3 sizes: tot (age 3+), child, and adult.

Needless to say, fabric masks are not PPE and tot size is not for babies.

If anyone wants the pattern, drop me a note here or PM on Facebook. I drew it up for my sister and saved it as a PDF because her company had fabric masks made for the guys out in the shop using the pattern posted on the CDC website (two layers of fabric sewn in a flat rectangle gathered by two very short, sewn-in elastic ear loops). This mask is also just two layers of fabric, but it is shaped to be more comfortable to wear.

I used to know how to insert a PDF into a post… if I figure it out again, I’ll update this.

Thanks for reading and happy sewing!