Let’s Talk Masks

Well hello there! I hope you’re all well and your quarantine is going well too.

Everything is weird right now in the world and as a society we’re learning to live in our “new normal”. A new normal where we’re hyper attentive to sanitation, hygiene and it can all be very overwhelming and scary. Personally, when I think of our “new normal” I get anxious. Things are not going to be the same as they were just a few months ago and it’s going to be a long time before things “get back to normal”, if they ever even will.

And so, it was with all this anxious energy that I crocheted my first face mask.

It wasn’t until high school that I got serious about crocheting and made beanies, berets, a few bags even. I crochet my first full blanket my freshman year of college. But I seriously digress.

Over the years I’ve come to use crocheting as way to exhaust my anxious energy and focus my mind on a task that is productive and calming. It’s one thing to acknowledge my anxiety when it rises but it’s another to make it the centre of my world. So I shifted that fixation onto a new project: crocheted face masks!

They are so soothing to whip up and they’ve become a great way for me to use up the cotton yarn I had in my stash that I haven’t touched in years. While I was whipping up the first couple masks I came up with a plan for how these little babies could reach more people and bring some good into the world. And so yes, they are for sale in my Etsy shop.

But I wanted to give back to the community and the health care workers that have been tirelessly working to keep our communities safe. So, for every purchase of a crocheted mask from my shop I am making two fabric masks that I am donating through Make Masks 2020. Be sure to check them out, they’re a great organization that is helping to distribute handmade cotton masks to places that need them. I’ve already donated some masks through them earlier in April and I’m really excited that I’ll be able to donate more through them.

Making these masks, both the crocheted masks and the cotton masks, has really helped with my anxiety because it’s one small thing I can control in this crazy pandemic. I can make masks and get them to people who need them. Plus, I love to crochet and having a crocheted mask that I made for myself makes me feel proud. And obviously, these are not medical grade masks but going forward in this “new normal” we’re probably going to see people wearing masks for a long time, why not make them stylish?

Well, I have rambled for quite some time now so I’ll leave you with this: In these crazy uncertain times it’s important to remember that we can’t control everything but we can control the controllable. For me that means I can make masks for myself, my family and friends, and people who need them. I can donate my time and my materials and it’s a win-win situation because through helping other people I’m also helping myself. But don’t ever let yourself feel guilty if you can’t donate masks, or don’t know how to sew or don’t have materials, whatever! There are a bunch of different ways people can help make a difference during this pandemic. It can be as simple as checking in on your friends and family just to see how their doing. You don’t have to do the most to still make an impact.

xoxo Juju