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Fetal Alcohol Syndrome Advocacy

Parker Design Face Mask By Delinda McCann

3/31/2020

1 Comment

 
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Caution this is a homemade, DIY project that may not hold up to rigorous testing with proper equipment. I named this product for my Grandfather Charles A Parker who could make anything out of the stuff in his shop.


In last week’s blog (See below) I talked about my reasoning in wanting to make face masks. I also mentioned that I found the liner fabric in garage. My polypropylene (Pp) comes from a roll of weed barrier and the polyethylene (Pe) is floating row cover. This week, I felt ready to begin my project.

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Testing
After machine washing and drying all the fabrics I intended to use I decided to test my design. 
I taped two layers of paper towel to the patio door then taped samples of my polypropylene (Pp) and polyethylene (Pe) to the paper towel. Using a spray bottle from the kitchen I sprayed them twice with water, then removed the filter. Back lighting from the window allowed me to see the water spatters. I discovered that I needed 4 layers of my Pp to prevent any visible water spatters from hitting the paper towel. I tried the spray-bottle test without the polyethylene, but didn’t like how wet the Pp layer got. I decided to use the polyethylene (Pe) for moisture control.

PictureFilter and lining fabrics clipped together so I can treat them as one piece the Flining*
Cutting


The lining and filter - The polyethylene (Pe) is lightweight and a bit unruly to work with. The polypropylene (Pp) is a bit stiff. I decided to work with the filter layers and lining layer as all one piece making a Flining* (filter and lining as one piece). I worked with just enough fabric to make both halves of one Flining* at a time— About 7” X 11”.

To control the materials before cutting, I stacked them cotton right side out on the bottom, 2 layers polyethylene (Pe), 4 layers Pp, and 2 layers Pe. I used clothes pins to hold them together until I got all the layers even then I pinned them. I used a marking pen to draw around my pattern directly on the Pe. Before cutting, I machine basted around the outside of my cutting line then finally inside my cutting line along the seam allowance. Working with the filter pieces and lining as all one piece made construction easier.

The outside layer is a larger piece, single layer.​

Insane Note. Why in the sixty-five years I’ve been sewing has it never ever occurred to me to draw the cutting lines directly on the fabric from a card-stock pattern that doesn’t shift and fly all over the place?

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The outside pieces with their pattern.
Assembly
Assembly went fairly smoothly once I remembered to cut both a right and left side for the filter. I quickly learned that two right sides don’t work. I was trying to save fabric and turned one side of the filter the wrong way to fit it closer on the fabric before cutting. We’ve all made that mistake, but you’d think I’d learn. 
The left and right sides of the flinging* are stitched along the curved edge. The outside layer is stitched the same.

I stitched the outside to the flining* right-sides together at the top, turned the mask right side out and pressed, pulling the outside over the filter. Next, I inserted a moldable plastic floral wire along the full length of the top and top-stitched it in place next to the seam allowance. Some people use twist ties or paper clips for shaping around the nose. 

I liked using a seam binding at the bottom of the mask. The outside and Flining layers can be stitched right sides together along the bottom, then the mask turned right side out. The sides of the cover are cut long enough to fold back to make a casing for the elastic ear piece. 

For my first products, I used elastic bands that fit around the ears. That worked and is a common way to hold a mask on. I, however, wear glasses and behind-the-ear hearing aids. Folks, it was getting a little crowded back there. I decided to try ties. 
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Mask with ties
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Fitting
At this point, attaching the face mask is going to be a matter of preference. Some people are going to like the elastic. Some people are allergic to the latex in the elastic. My favorite tie consisted of a 30” piece of ribbon threaded through the casing for the elastic. Tack the tie down through the casing to keep it from slipping out of the casing. I tied this at the top-back of my head, then pulled the bottom of the tie tight at the nape of my neck. This allowed me to adjust the mask under my glasses and get a secure fit. The sides of the mask should gather up a little. ​

Hubby’s been wearing the mask with the elastic bands but had some issues around his glasses. Perhaps people with glasses will prefer the ties to get a closer fit with less slippage.

Washing.

For our first mask, my daughter pre-washed the fabric on warm as is normal for pre-washing. She wore her mask, then washed it on hot water dried it on hot. The fabric shrunk slightly causing the mask to fit differently. We’re pre-washing on hot now. 
Alternatives

My daughter and I are also making covers for N-95 masks using the same pattern with  two layers of cotton fabric without the polypropylene (Pp) filter. ​

I’ve considered making surgical style masks to give away. I may decide to put some Pe in there just because I like the moisture control. As I mentioned last week, moisture is a huge problem in the two layer surgical style cloth mask.
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The pattern we used with link to the original at the top of the page. Link: http://www.craftpassion.com/?p=26304
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For testing we sprayed our samples from one meter and from .66 meter (2 feet_, but measuring in meters is more sciency.
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My daughter in mask with over-the-ear elastic bands. This style moves around more than the once with ties, but is easier to put on and take off. Note: 1/4" elastic is scarce, so we cut some 5/8" down the middle. Also, I posted a bad hair picture of me, so she gets one too.
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The Face Mask By Delinda McCan

3/23/2020

2 Comments

 
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True Confession: Sometimes, I get obsessive. 

Like everybody else, I’ve been somewhat obsessed with the Coronavirus. I can still carry on my normal activities and am not sure how many cases there are in my state or county right now. However, I did take Bacteriology and Public Health from Dr. Drake. I know how diseases spread. I know how they can change the course of history. I’ve even mentioned the role of disease in society in my M’TK Sewer Rat novels. I’m more than paying attention. Not long ago, I decided I won’t condemn those who hoard TP or food because the same forces that drive others to hoard material things have driven me to hoard information, in addition to a few material things like fabric, garden supplies and floral design products. 

In my search for information, I’ve made a few observations along the way. First, in those places like Tiawan that have handled this virus better than the US,  they encourage people to wear face masks. In the US, we’re not wearing them because we don’t have enough, so the wearing of face masks has been downplayed. Experts admit that a face mask will help prevent the spread of disease by preventing people from touching their faces. It will also contain disease-carrying droplets from those who are infected. Here, the caution is to isolate and leave the masks for medical professionals.
​

The idea to isolate sounds good, but my pets decided to stress-binge and ate six-weeks of food in about three. We’ve had to go out for pet food. My preparation for this type of disaster wasn’t all that good. We’ve run out of a few items and had to go to the store. As someone with asthma and allergies, I seem to cough constantly anyway. People scowl at me if I cough where they can hear me. 

I’ve been okay, but another factor disturbs me about going out. Other people are fecking idiots.  People don’t cover their coughs. They pick their noses. They are not staying home. Some people deny the problem or think they are invincible. They cough and sneeze on everything. They will go everywhere. Finally, some people are deliberate disease vectors. They possess an aggressive arrogance, even going so far as to spit on other people just out of defiance of the advice to stay home. Members of this last group have forced some businesses in my community to close because they can’t keep their establishment safe from those who will spit, cough and sneeze on others just to torment those who want to be safe and sanitary. 

Okay, so we have disease vectors and also the need to go out. What do we do? I immediately started using my wonderful homemade hand sanitizer with alcohol and aloe to protect me while I’m out. When I get to where I can wash, I sing the ABC song while washing with soap. Still, looking the local situation over, I decided the face masks are probably a good idea. We have a shortage of face masks, so buying them isn’t socially responsible. Now is the hour for my fabric hoard to shine. Yes. This is the moment I’ve been saving all that beautiful fabric for. 

Next question: What is the best design? The answer to this question turned into a massive internet search. The short answer was to use two layers of cotton fabric. You saw this type of mask used in the TV series Mash. It used to be the standard. It is adequate for most things. A study done on homemade masks at Cambridge University (Davies 2014) indicated that two layers of cotton like that used in tea towels were better than nothing. I have lots of cotton fabric and some would be better than the tea-towel fabric used in the Cambridge study. I really wanted something better—something superior to better-than-nothing. 

Cotton fabric masks were used for years until the spun-polypropylene masks appeared in the mass market. The newer technology is designed to filter out viruses—yes. A study targeting flu viruses in a hospital in Vietnam (MacIntyre) indicated that not only was the polypropylene mask better at catching viruses, the cotton mask when damp from long usage could promote the spread of a virus. 

I started looking for sources of spun-polypropylene. I found a huge roll of spun-polyethylene in the garage. I went back to the computer. Polyethylene and polypropylene are both spin-able plastic fabrics. They are almost identical with a few molecules of oxygen and differences in bonding separating them chemically. They have slightly different properties in how they hold water and how strong they are. Polyethylene is used in making Kevlar—the stuff the military uses to stop bullets. I use both polyethylene and polypropylene in my garden. I have rolls of the stuff. So how was I going to design my face mask? The Cambridge study tells me I can get a mask that will stop fifty percent of the viruses I encounter by using two layers of cotton fabric. (Davies 2013) Now, if I add some polypropylene I can filter out more viruses. I wonder if a little bit of polyethylene will change the properties of how wet the cotton mask will get if worn for more than an hour? Will it work to reduce the velocity of a cough or sneeze? How many layers, of the products I have available, will I need? 

I am now at the stage of needing to test. Testing would involve, wearing a product to see how comfortable it is. If I want to get real scientific, I can get some colored water and a pressurized sprayer and see how much color gets through my mask. Colored water droplets are bigger than a virus, but the virus is carried on water droplets. The water droplets are what the polypropylene is supposed to filter out. 

I might just make my masks comfortable and add a few layers of the poly plastic fabrics and call this good for community use. My goal is to give these things away for free. 

I’ve sourced all my materials locally. The cotton is from the hoard in the sewing room cupboard. The poly fabrics are from the garden supply shelf in the garage. The moldable plastic for fitting around the nose is from a roll of material I bought for use in floral design. It will be perfect in my masks. It’s bendable and will hold its shape but not poke or scratch. I’m ready for my prototypes. 

Once the prototypes are complete I plan to ask for independent testers. On an island of scientists, I know a few people who might have fun with spray guns and my masks. 

Sources

Anna Davies et al.: Testing the Efficacy of Homemade Masks Cambridge University Press May 2013. https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/disaster-medicine-and-public-health-preparedness/article/testing-the-efficacy-of-homemade-masks-would-they-protect-in-an-influenza-pandemic/0921A05A69A9419C862FA2F35F819D55

MacIntyre, Seale et al.:  A cluster randomized trial of cloth masks compared with medical masks in healthcare workers https://bmjopen.bmj.com/content/5/4/e006577



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Be Prepared By Delinda McCAnn

3/15/2020

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Covid-19: What I’ve learned about being prepared.​

Be Prepared is the Girl Scout motto. I was a Girl Scout, but I wasn’t very good at selling cookies. I earned a few badges, but not many. So, when a real-life problem hit, what kind of Girl Scout was I? We all live with danger—hurricanes,tornados, earthquakes, or blizzards. We’re always told to be prepared. How prepared was I?

I really thought I was prepared. After all, we can get snowed in for five days any time between November and April. I’ve read all the material from the local disaster preparedness groups. I have batteries and emergency heat and lighting. I understand about earthquakes and how they can cut me off from the mainland. I thought I had what I needed to be prepared to stay home.

As a senior citizen who is also a cancer survivor, I know I have some risk factors. My cancer treatment left me with some serious limits. All my life, I’ve had to consider my asthma before I go out. I should be prepared. 

The Seattle area is a Covid-19 hot spot. Seniors are supposed to stay home. People with health issues and breathing problems are supposed to stay home. So, how is this Girl Scout doing? First the good news, we’re fine on TP. I picked up some at Costco the first of February.  We’re good. We also have a bidet attachment on one toilet. If we get low on TP, we can cope. I buy beef by the quarter, so meat is fine.

Pet food has been a semi-failure. The allergic cat ran low on food a few days into my self-isolation. I can buy his food by the case on-line and have done so. I needed to order 10 days in advance, but he’d been eating more than usual and suddenly didn’t have ten days worth of food left. I went out to the pet-food store to buy him more food. Yesterday, hubby said the ducks had only one day of food left. Dang, I could have gotten duck food on the trip out for cat food, but I didn’t check the duck food. What I learned; To be prepared, I need to make sure I have enough pet food on hand. Storage isn’t a problem for me, so I can do this.

I can’t believe we ran low on fresh veggies. I own a farm. We are usually up to our eyeballs in fresh veggies. However, the garden isn’t all that productive this time of year. Collard greens were the main crop I was harvesting from. We’d scheduled workers to redo the raised bed the collards were growing in on March first, so I harvested the tops and pulled them up. I did put them in the vegetable crisper. From there, they went into stir-frys and soup. I seldom buy canned or frozen veggies, so we were suddenly low. I had some kale, and there is still a leek out there, but I’d say I wasn’t prepared for a quarantine. I need to rethink my garden to be certain this doesn’t happen in the future. I should have had kale, overwintered cabbage, leeks, sun chokes, and collards. I do have dahlias. I could dig the tubers and eat them if I’m desperate, but I’d rather sell the tubers for flowers. People who buy canned and frozen veggies won’t have the problem of a sudden shortage in late winter, but I thought my gardens were a protective factor. What I learned: Even with a year-round gardens, gaps in production can place us at-risk for a food shortage if something else goes wrong in the garden.


Okay, but we were still good on meat, flour and toilet paper. Was there somewhere else I wasn’t prepared? Can you believe that on the second day of self-isolation the clothes dryer died? I think it died because the washing machine was too old and tired to spin fast enough to get much water out of the clothes. The dryer was working too hard. Both machines were twenty-five years old. I immediately tried buying new machines on-line. I couldn’t get them delivered. We finally ended up going to an appliance store. That wasn’t too bad. The store was mostly deserted. We didn’t have much of an exchange with the clerk who rang us up and handed us a receipt. Our big exposure to other people came when we got the machines home and needed help unloading them and setting them up. This involved interacting with neighborhood volunteers, touching common surfaces, putting heads together and grunting. What I learned about being prepared is that having old appliances that are on their last legs isn’t being prepared. 

This Girl Scout is careful about keeping her prescription medicines up to date with an emergency supply in the background. I’m good on the medication that keeps me alive, and my cancer from coming back. I have another medication I use occasionally. It’s not covered by my insurance and is ghastly expensive. Most of the time, I can get by on cheaper stuff. Of course, my over-the-counter allergy medication isn’t covered by insurance, but I only need that occasionally. I’m cheap, so I hadn’t restocked the things I don’t need daily. So a week into the self-isolation, I’d been out of the house more than I usually am. It may have been the extra chores or wrestling new appliances that sent me into a flare from my compromised immune system. I really needed my expensive prescription. Next, the red oaks bloomed, and I developed a cough and runny nose. I kept telling myself the symptoms weren’t due to Covid-19, but I still worried. I also knew I must go out, yet again, to get the two medications I needed. What I learned is that I was prepared with a good supply of the medication I need most. I wasn’t even close to being prepared for the occasional immune flare and seasonal allergies. 

I don’t want to say I’m a failure as a Girl Scout, because I loved scouting and playing games and camping. Skinny dipping in Mason Lake is one of my favorite memories. I even sorta liked the crafts. However, as far as being prepared, I didn’t do too well, but at least I know I need to be prepared, and I’m learning how to do better. I hope I’m ready for complete lockdown.









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    Delinda McCann is a social psychologist, author, avid organic gardener and amateur musician.

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