House maintenance projects seem to spawn more creative projects sometimes, often out of pure necessity. One recent represented quite a timebomb here at my house from the simple process of basement decluttering in prep for some urgently needed basement work. On a neglected shelf, this paper bag had been sitting for years and I had totally forgotten what was in there.

the neglected bag

…oh.

These were all the reusable masks my family used from 2020 to 2022 during the COVID pandemic. It looks like a lot, doesn’t it? I don’t know if it is - but we certainly went through them and washed them all so many times. We had a lot because my husband was working in-person, and my daughter started pre-school, and both locations had mandatory masking policies. We had paper bags to store that day’s used mask, and then lots of washing… it was a whole dang process and one that I don’t miss.

Separating out the denim masks from the cotton. My husband wore the denim ones to work. They had a filter pocket inside.

These were some of the masks my kid wore when she was a preschooler.

It was hard to see these kid masks again. And it is heartbreaking to think about how hard it was on the kids who were SO young going through a pandemic and all the isolation and the rules - especially when I see the cute designs and food stains on these masks. I am so grateful we made it through with all our loved ones safe and sound, I know not every one was so fortunate.

And of course, some of these masks were from very early on in the pandemic, and homemade.

These star-design masks were two masks I made, improvised from materials I had at home, in late March 2020. I used quilt batting for a filter layer, and twisted strands of florist wire to pinch the mask at the nose bridge. It didn’t work well but this improvised solution was certainly better than nothing.

And this small mask was the one I made for my daughter. She was 2 when COVID started and I didn’t want her to be scared by the masks, so I used the cutest, brightest fabric I had in my stash.

The masks were worn and washed many times. They look fatigued.

For comparison, here’s a proper blast from the past with photos from when I made these masks in 2020. The masks in 2020, looking fresh

How crisp they looked. You can see the spool of florist wire I used on the right.

In any case, I didn’t want to shove them all back in a bag and forget about them in my basement. These masks went through a lot, we went through a lot together, and I’m also too afraid to simply throw them out. That feels like bad luck somehow. So something Must Be Done.

I removed any masks from the bag that were synthetic or heavy. Those can easily be tossed. The majority remained - all lightweight printed cottons, similar to quilting cottons for the most part. So I got out my seam ripper and got to work. And I ended up with this stack:

My pile of reusable COVID masks, deconstructed to just their cloth parts, the elastics and cording, filters, nose bridges and seams all removed.

Can you tell I don’t have a plan yet? I have enough projects on the frontburner for now so this will stay on the backburner a bit while I figure out what to do. But a small scrappy quilt feels like the right move.