I save all my fabric scraps! Don’t you? There is so much you can use them for. They are beautiful pieces of fabric I just can’t throw away unless they’re really tiny.

My friend, Kim Green, has been making masks for over a month for those who are working with the public during this shutdown. She showed a beautiful heart that she made with her scraps. That gave me the idea to use some of my scraps to make a mask in a “crazy quilt” style.

The first step is to gather scraps and sew them together with random fabrics such as above. I chose fabrics in a turquoise and purplish color range. I made 2, one each for each mask side so I could position each side of the pattern when cutting.

Then I cut the pieces out using this pattern. I sewed the pieces and lining to make my mask. You may want to make your “crazy quilt” mask for yourself or a gift. If you are bulk mask making, I don’t recommend this “crazy quilt” method as it’s much more time consuming and cuts down on production. I also didn’t add embroidery stitches as I figured that the added texture may hold any virus, plus they will be washed a lot. I turned the ends of the ribbon under and stitched back and forth so they would not ravel when washed.

And while in the stitching-scraps-together mode, I decided to make another one in a different color combination. I chose pink, orange and green for this one.

I have always loved crazy quilting and love applying it to more modern type products. It works great for masks. I have many other crazy quilt projects that I have been working on the past several months – I just need to add the finishing touches.

I hope you are finding ways to stay productive and creative during the shut down. At first, it was hard to focus and saw that this was the case for just about everybody. Then, my need to stay busy with my hands and mind kicked in. So the result has been sewing masks, embroidery, creating new art, creating content for ArtBizJam Abundance (with Lori Siebert) and taking some creative online classes, mostly with Procreate. But I really, really miss being with family and friends.

I hope you are all staying safe and well. It has been a struggle with all of us as life goes on and we feel that aren’t fully participating like we have always done. Maybe we will be getting back to that soon.

Phyllis