I pawed through my box of old fabric scraps and found some black cotton knit containing liberal spandex . . . just the thing to cling but still let in a little air. I held two layers up to the light. No light seeped through. Perfect! I found the pattern my sister sent me a couple months ago. I arranged and pinned, snipped and clipped and sat down on Grandma's old sewing chair to start sewing.
If you've ever sewn on something stretchy with a twenty-year-old plastic Singer that cost $79.99 new, you know that it's all about pushing and pulling at the right moment to coax the weak tired machine over the lumps. The cool thing about this stretchy jersey is if you cut long strips, the strips automatically roll into skinny tubes that make perfect ear loops or ties. First I sewed the mask pieces together. Then along the top edge I inserted one of those wire gizmos that close the top of coffee bags. You can shape them to fit the bridge of your nose! How cool is that. To really put paid to the whole thing, I sewed it in purple thread.
I used to be a professional seamstress in one of my former lives, no lie, but you wouldn't know it by what came out of my machine tonight. Jet black it was, there's that. Can't deny it. The purple thread looked ridiculous but when have I cared how I looked? I stopped caring when I turned fifty, which was a long time ago. The cotton knit was thick and bulky but the nose piece really held its shape. I took the mask to the mirror for the fitting.
I took off my glasses and looped the loops over my ears. I stared at my reflection. Something didn't seem quite right. The thing seemed to droop. I couldn't keep the loops around my ears. My ears seemed to be bending forward. Were the loops too big? Too stretchy? It seemed to me that the arch over the bridge of my nose was too high, which made the ear loops positioned too low. I folded over the top edge of the mask, making it four times as bulky and peered over the top of it into the mirror. Better, but still not quite right.
I fussed in front of the mirror, tugging and pulling, huffing and puffing, and finally figured out what was wrong (besides the fact that I was hyperventilating because the fabric was too tightly knitted to make a good mask): My ears were simply too high. It's my damn ears. They are like elf ears without the points. When did that happen?
Apparently my ears sit too high on my head, compared to my eyes. If I looped the mask over my ears, my eyes were covered. (This would not be an ideal mask design. We all know it is hard to drive without being able to see—hard, but not impossible.) On the other hand, could it be my nose? I don't know. I do have quite a large nose. Maybe if my nose were smaller, the mask wouldn't need such a pronounced arch. My ears are Lilliputian compared to my proboscis. I'm feeling out of balance.
It's so embarrassing that my sewing skills are so rusty. I used to sew clothes for a living. No kidding. I really did know how to sew once. I never really enjoyed it, well, let me be honest: I have despised sewing since I learned at age nine in 4-H. Still, you'd think I could figure out how to make a workable face mask.
In my defense, I do have some challenges. The vertigo and ear hissing are distracting, but I hope that will someday resolve. In addition, now that I'm well north of sixty, I can't see up close, with or without my glasses (hence the purple thread). On the bright side, my fingers still work okay, especially when it's ninety in the Love Shack. But now my darn ears have migrated upward. I really can't imagine how that happened.
Speaking of getting things done, tomorrow is my mother's ninety-first birthday. I'm ready. I plan to hang some colorful balloons outside her window while she is in the dining room eating dinner. If I can find something chocolate and gluten-free that resembles a cupcake, I will put a candle on it and ask the nursing home staff to present it to Mom as she finishes her dinner. Whether they light the candle will be up to them. I have already notified the owner of the facility that I will be parading outside the dining room holding a Happy Birthday Mom sign. I think I can figure out how to attach some balloons to my straw hat. I'm guessing I'll do a little dancing. Maybe the other residents will think I'm a clown or something. If I can make them smile, that would be great, even if they think I'm a nut. I can think of worse things.
