Masks
   for my sister
  
  
 Monday now, and your birthday.
 We talked yesterday, bright joy
 for me in an April snowstorm.
  
 Your package arrived weeks ago,
 you told me. Worried about lockdowns,
 I mailed it a month early.
  
 All over our small city,
 those who venture out now
 cover their faces with masks.
  
 I used to think of masked balls,
 or Halloween. Now, highway men
 and worse, The Masque of the Red Death,
  
 my early assiduous reading
 of Poe, horror of plague,
 woe, the colors of crow.
  
 Yet joy is ascendant, leaps
 like that spritely spotted cow 
 who jumps over the moon.
  
 I’m here, you’re here.
 We’ll talk again soon. 
 Meanwhile, for you,
  
 who always meets me
 where I am, never asks
 that I put on a false face,
  
 I am making a mask
 of the softest cloth
 to send to you, just 
  
 a bright, little scrap
 of current ingenuity
 and hope. Just in case.
  
  
 Leslie Schultz 

Recently, Tim asked me to make him a mask. We found instructions online, thanks to the tiny but incomparable shop on St. Paul’s Grand Avenue, Treadle Yard Goods. From their website, and inspired by their initiative to make masks for healthcare workers, as well as friends and family, we found a pattern at a site called Sew Good dedicated to making and donating quality handmade items. (I have included the link so the pattern is available to you.)

Usually, I sew by hand, but I knew that I couldn’t manuver a sliver-sharp quilting needle through denim in tiny stitches (too painful!). Some years ago, my friend, Corrine Heiberg, had given me her beloved Elna sewing machine. This past winter, by chance, I found a place to have it reconditioned, but given my timidity with machines and technology, I had not yet moved forward on my intention of becoming comfortable using it.

This past week, with Tim standing by for technical and moral support, I have now successfully wound bobbins, threaded top and bottom threads, and (yes! I see the metaphor!) adjusted tensions. I found some much-laundered cloth–a denim kitchen apron retired from service due to a frayed neck strap that I had always meant to replace, and some soft flannel from pajamas that had been put out to pasture. My only deficit in terms of materials was elastic. There, too, Corrine came to the rescue. I re-purposed the elastic from some Aeroflot eye shades she sent my way. This elastic is thin and soft and a discreet black, but it looks strong enough to hold.

Here is the prototype with a dashing model. Who? Perhaps Spiderman?

Encouraged by the first one, yesterday I made two more, one for Karla, one for me.

Effective? So they say, and I think they do signal reassuring safety to others.

Meanwhile, I am thinking, now that the trusty Elna and I have become friends, of other projects I might attempt this year. (Quilts! Quilts! Quilts!)

Wishing you a safe and lighthearted day, whatever you are doing on this Monday,

Leslie