Items

• 
  2020-03-26

  The Sound of Sewing

  I moved back in with my parents right before lockdown during the Covid-19 pandemic never imagining how long it would go on for. Since my mother is a teacher she was at home with my younger sister and me during the entire lockdown. My father still went to work because he works for a city and was part of the emergency response to the pandemic. I remember going to the grocery store with my sister and seeing the empty shelves unsure of when they would be restocked. I remember the panic of needing face masks and not being able to find any. That is when my mother decided she would make face masks for us, our extended family and to donate. She pulled out the sewing machine, which originally was for when my grandmother would come visit, and set it on the dining table. My grandmother used to sew all the time when she would visit us and make my sister and I dresses and even matching dresses for our dolls. It was always a sound I had associated with her. I helped my mother in ordering and looking up information on which materials were recommended by health officials, then she set to work, making hundreds of face masks. Every morning I would wake up to the sound of the sewing machine and my first thought would be of my grandmother. As time went on I associated the sound with the pandemic, more specifically lockdown. My mother enjoys doing different craft projects and she really enjoyed making the face masks. It was a fun activity that I also enjoyed helping her with. She made face masks for my dad’s work which were donated to the fire and police departments. We also mailed masks to our extended family in New Mexico, California, and Mexico. We wore the masks ourselves if we had to go anywhere during lockdown. The sound of the sewing machine became a regular occurrence during those early weeks of quarantine. The sewing machine, especially the sound, used to only represent my grandmother making gifts for us. In Mexico, where my grandmother still lives, she used to have a small business making and selling clothing as a way to earn extra much needed money. It wasn’t just a hobby at that time, but a necessity for her and her family. The sound of the sewing machine, became something I not only associated of my grandmother but of the beginning of quarantine and the importance of knowing certain basic skills. Knowing how to sew, and even being able to use a sewing machine, may seem like an unimportant skill nowadays, which was something I used to think. However, that skill helped my grandmother and decades later is still helping the rest of our family.
• 
  2022-04-29

  An ~Interesting~ Time to Say the Least

  After living through it for the past two years, there is SO much to say about the COVID-19 pandemic, and I don’t even know where to begin. I guess the main takeaway is that it really forced everyone’s true colors to show. At the beginning in March of 2020, everyone was so uncertain of what was to come, and that alone made it so scary, that most people had no choice but to make light of the situation. I remember not only the grocery store shelves being empty because of everyone over-stocking their pantries and shortages in general, but also the hobby sections of Walmart and Target being empty, which was truly a really beautiful thing to witness. People were taking the time in quarantine to learn more about themselves whether that meant learning new skills or trying out new hobbies and spending time with their families doing puzzles and playing games as well. For me personally, I taught myself how to sew, which is depicted in the attached photo, as I needed to make face masks for my boyfriend and me (out of an old t-shirt) so we could safely go to the grocery store, before masks were widely available. I also learned how to bake really delicious treats, got back into reading, and even painted a few pictures here and there. Aside from these positives, it also brought out a lot of negatives as well including built up anxiety and anger that came out in the form of a new equal rights movement: Black Lives Matter after George Floyd's murder. It was scary at the time because protests and riots got very violent, but any movement for equal rights is a good movement, so it was a positive in the long run. I would say COVID-19 also played a role in the insurrection at the capitol on January 6th of 2021, and more division between political parties regarding vaccines and mandates. One could go on for hours listing all the positive and negative aspects that came about from the pandemic, but it's most important to recognize how resilient we as humans are. I'm proud of how far we've come.
• 
  2021-09-22

  Thomas Ligh and Sierra Butler Oral History, 2021/09/22

  Interview between two first year college students who have felt the effects of COVID-19 in their every day lives, with a focus on how it has affected their learning experiences in school.
• 
  2021-09-16T13:00:00

  Tiffany Lam and Daniel Berry Oral History, 2021/09/16

  This is a quick interview between two freshmen in college, recapping our overall thoughts throughout the pandemic.
• 
  2021-04-19

  Faith Guided Man to Make 1200 Face Masks for Community

  I remember vividly on March 12, 2020, when I told my students that school might be canceled next week because of Covid-19. At that moment, I was confident that we won’t be coming back to school the following week because of the events that were occurring around the world and the scenes that we have never seen before that were happening in our own backyard. The shortage of food and essential items were something that I have never imagined would occur in our local store. It was a horrible feeling of uncertainty and a feeling of being powerless about what to expect. My parents, brother, and I have underlying health issues thus living this year has taken a toll on the way we interact with other people from outside of our household. We feel like we are living on an island. In April, CDC had a constant voice in what we should do and recommended that we should wear face masks with two layers of fabric, wash our hands and be socially distant. At that particular moment, I was stressed out because how in the world will I get face masks when almost everything in the store is gone. I then told my mom about this and my mom said that there is a sewing machine under the stairs that I can use to make face masks. As a 6 foot latinx man, my parents didn’t have any issue with me using or learning how to use a sewing machine. In a Mexican household, only women can use the sewing machine, but in my household, my parents have embraced the new identity of America, and believe why would there be a problem in me doing things that are normally done by females? I used faith to guide me in understanding how to use the 1960’s sewing machine. I prayed and said that I have good intentions of helping my family and community to be safe from this virus so please help me financially and physically in making face masks. That same week, I received a check in the mail, and with that money, I purchased a lot of fabric and materials to make facemasks. I created a universal design that uses less material and in some way helps the environment and I created about 1200 face masks. I also found a way to create 50 face masks per hour and that helped me a lot. Even though many people feel reluctant to wear face masks, it breaks my heart that few don’t care about the people who have underlying health issues. They may be asymptomatic to covid, but wearing a face mask is a moral thing to do, and a thought that comes to my mind is, “Father, please forgive them, for they don’t know what they are doing.” For a whole year, my family and I were protected from contracting Covid-19, and the first week of April of 2021, we got our vaccine. I truly believed that my prayer was answered because God knew my intentions and in some way protected my family and me for doing basic things to help us not to get this horrific virus.
• 
  2020-12-01

  The Covid Quilt

  This is my Covid Quilt. When the lock down started I ordered a bunch of different fabrics to make masks with. The fabric size that seemed to have the most value was called a fat quarter. After making my family a bunch of bright colored masks, I had so many squares of fabric left over I decided to save them. I was not sure why I was saving them though. By the end of this summer I had hundreds of squares and decided to make a quilt. This is my Covid quilt. You can see a years worth of colorful masks represented in it. I really wish I knew how to do embroidery. I would embroider the words, "Covid Quilt 2020" into it. I am not even a sewer. I took a class in high school over twenty years ago. Defiantly imperfect just like the year 2020. But it is warm and thick. I think I will try my best to take care of it.
• 
  2020-10-26

  Mom's Homemade Masks

  This is an image of the workspace my mom and sister have been working at while creating masks for our family to wear. My sister has also sold a few to coworkers in our school district. This image shows how important masks are in order to stop spreading germs. Wearing a mask is extremely important when going out in public in order to protect yourself and others from COVID-19. My family has made several different kinds of masks. They have made different themed ones, such as Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Year’s, as well as generic ones. They have made different styles, like the pleated surgical-style ones in this photo in addition to the Olson style masks. They have also created different sizes, for the adults in our family and smaller ones for my four nieces. This photo is important to me because it has been very difficult for my siblings to find masks at stores that will fit on kids ages 1-4. They are also more inclined to want to wear a mask because it is something special that my mom has made for them in patterns that they love, like animal, Disney, and holiday prints. I don’t think there is a lot of information out there about parents with young children who are growing up in the time of a pandemic. It can be difficult to leave the house some days to do something as simple as grocery shopping, because kids like to touch everything and don’t always cooperate when wearing a mask. One of the biggest struggles I’ve heard my sister talk about as an elementary school teacher is trying to get her students to keep their masks on. It's really important for people to understand these struggles and help each other out while in the midst of a pandemic.
• 2020-07-27

  Lockdown Clothing Project

  We are two London-based fashion scholars – Lorraine Smith (aka Lori) and Jana Melkumova-Reynolds – who have always been curious about how others dress, and how this relates to identity. Recent social changes (due to the coronavirus pandemic) have increased that curiosity. How are people dressing when in lockdown and isolation situations? How is this different to the way they dressed before? Has it affected their sense of self? This project aims to shine a light on those changes and reveal some of the many and varied personal stories relating to fashion and dress in 2020.
• 
  2010-07-13

  A Journal Entry of the Plague Year

  I wrote a reflection of my experience in quarantine and what I learnt during this difficult time.
• 
  2020-06-18

  Californians must wear face masks in public under coronavirus order issued by Newsom

  It is now required to wear masks in California. I finally broke down and bought a sewing machine to make masks for my family. Most masks are fairly cheap right now. Going for about $5-$10 each for a homemade one and about $20 for nicer manufactured ones. I was able to buy enough supplies to make masks for everyone I know for the price I would have spend to purchase me and my family enough to wear and wash for the week. I watched a tutorial on how to make the masks and by last night I am now able to bake a mask in under ten minutes. I am bummed about the mask mandate but it does not affect me much as I was already wearing them. Masks are making life difficult for people like me who are Hard of Hearing. I worry what next year will look like when the schools open and I go back to teaching.
• 
  2020-06-15

  Filling empty space and empty time

  Our formal front room is usually reserved for family gatherings or avoiding the noise if someone has the tv on too loud in the living room. While it has long also been a place where my dad drops his notebooks, newspapers, and articles he has printed off to read, in quarantine it has become his space even more than before. While I have taken up embroidery, my mom has been sewing masks for those in need, and my brother has retreated once more to his room to watch YouTube videos, my dad has turned back to reading. Most of my life he has only really read nonfiction: books on history, economics, and political biographies. But he has been retired for over 2 years now, and I think all the work-related reading has cleared his system, so he has begun to bring fiction back into circulation. His consumption of literature has also been increased by the fact that shipping fees have been waved on books for the last three months. I have never seen him read this much or enjoy it this much. He is keeping his books in a place of pride and easy access too, instead of gathering dust in the shelves in our basement office or under the coffee table. Usually the bay window in the front room holds only the wooden candlesticks my uncle made us, and maybe a seasonal decoration or two, but now they display his growing library as well. He’s had the time before now; being retired, but he had other options to occupy his time, like going out for coffee nearly daily or pursuing the hardware store. The pandemic kickstarted the habit which I think will be entertaining him going forward into a post pandemic world with spy novels and literature added to his biographies and political economy texts.
• 
  2020-03-30

  A Victorian-Inspired Reticule

  This was the first thing I made during the pandemic. It provided an outlet for my excess energy at the beginning of the initial isolation period, but also allowed some community engagement as it was part of the Instagram movement in the sewing community, #sewcialdistancing. It provided an avenue for me to connect with other creators, and refocus myself at the beginning of isolation.
• 
  26/05/20

  A Victorian-Inspired Reticule

  This item was the first thing I created once entering isolation. A project that I have been putting off for several months, it created an outlet for me to channel the initial nervous energy of the isolation situation. In this I contributed to a larger trend on Instagram in the sewing community, #sewcialdistancing, in which cosplayers, embroiderers, historical costumers, and other sewers began channeling their own excess energy into projects.
• 
  2020-04-28

  Mask fabric from a friend

  As soon as the CDC announced that the general public should start wearing masks whenever we are away from home I began making masks for myself, family, and friends. Unlike most people who sew I did not have a large stash of fabric to work with and the stores were out and even getting it from an online seller was taking four weeks. I reshared a picture of empty shelves at the Walmart fabric department someone else had taken and shared on Facebook and a woman I had only met once offered to send me fabric. I live in Texas and she lives in California. This is the box of fabric she sent via priority mail. I was so excited to receive this treasure. On top of that I've been getting elastic for mask making from another friend in Oklahoma who was able to order it wholesale, right before it became impossible to get. I've sent 60 masks to a local prison, about 30-40 to the Window Rock Reservation Wellness Center, and have given and sold about another 100 to friends, family, and random people who found out I was making masks via Facebook. I've also sent mask to several other states, including Ohio, Alaska, Michigan, and Kentucky, including masks made from the material in that box. *Cotton fabric
• 
  2020-05-19

  Mask Making

  This is a photo of the masks that I haven't finished sewing. There are around 50 shown here. I have made 130 masks to date, which I have donated to hospitals, USPS, nursing homes, friends, and family. I make masks in my free time between my classes or after (virtual) school.
• 
  2020-04-05

  DIY mask making. 3 of 3 - Scituate, MA

  Image of DIY project to make masks at home
• 
  2020-04-05

  DIY mask making. 2 of 3 - Scituate, MA

  Image of DIY project to make masks at home
• 
  2020-04-05

  DIY mask making. 1 of 3 - Scituate, MA

  Image of DIY project to make masks at home.
• 
  2020-05-09

  Handout for the Unitarian Universalist Church of Spartanburg sewing circle

  This is a hand out designed to go along with face masks created by members of the Unitarian Universalist Church of Spartanburg Sewing Circle to be distributed to the public. The masks have been distributed in the community, to elder care facilities and children's homes to the local immigrant community and to the local homeless community. The handout outlines proper use and care of a face mask.
• 2020-05-03

  small Masks businesses

  With the lack of masks being sold in and through stores, people have now been making small businesses of their own by sewing and making them. People have gotten really creative with their masks lately. I've seen bandanas, scarves, and oddly enough plastic shields over their faces. Currently, our local Walmart is being cleaned out of all its fabric. Last time I checked it was pretty much empty. People are taking orders for others and selling homemade masks. I have 3 co-workers who sell them, one even sells ones with sports team patterns. I just bought a patriots one for my grandma. I just never thought about people making a living off of masks, its a good time for people to learn how to sew if anything.
• 
  2020-04-28

  REL Sewing Homemade Masks

  This image shows a mother sewing homemade masks for her and her family to use whenever they are outside of the house.
• 
  2020-04-30

  Two down, infinite thousands to go!

  These are the first two masks I sewed. I am part of a "virtual sewing circle" that has made almost 500 in total. I have personally made 8 so far but I got a late start. We have given them out in the neighborhood, sent them to hospitals and my partner and I carry them in individual bags when we go to the store to offer people who look like they might need one.
• 
  2020-04-24

  instructions for making a face mask

  How to make a face mask at home-complete instructions
• 
  2020-03

  Making masks for donation to first responders, healthcare workers, law enforcers and other front liners.

  Due to scarcity of basic supplies, the community do their share in providing essential items, relying on creativity and ingenuity. Making masks for donation to first responders, healthcare workers, law enforcers and other front liners. Supplies are unavailable so I sanitize then cut up tin soda cans to be used for the nose wire.Home made safety gear to support first responders and vital community workers masks for donation to first responders, healthcare workers, law enforcers and other front liners. Supplies are unavailable so I sanitize then cut up tin soda cans to be used for the nose wire.
• 
  2020-03-29

  Text conversation featuring homemade face mask

  A text conversation between Sebastien Hardinger and his parents, Chris Hardinger and Johanne Lamarche, about a face mask that Johanne made herself from an old sheet
• 
  2020-03-28

  Tieks #sewtogether campaign

  Tieks, an online retailer of foldable flats, started a campaign to get masks sewn for healthcare workers. Because of the shortage of masks, healthcare workers are reusing disposable masks or even going without. Tieks is offering gift cards for customers that sew masks and then donate them to local hospitals or other healthcare sites.
• 
  2020-03-26

  Hand-Sewn Masks for Donation to Local Nursing Home

  Twitter user @bartonclarax stayed up all night to finish 51 hand-sewn masks to donate to a local nursing home. Shows an artist who runs a small business dedicating time, energy, and supplies to helping health care providers in the midst of this crisis.
• 
  03/22/2020

  Photo of Kelly from Oklahoma sewing face masks for an ER nurse in FT Worth, TX that was working without a mask during the COVID-19 medical supply shortages

  During the morning of March 22, 2020 Kelly and Clinton of Blanchard, OK received a phone call that Clinton’s cousin was working without protective medical masks at a FT Worth, TX hospital ER. Through the day Kelly rushed through sewing & fabrication of medical masks from their spare bed sheets. Kelly intends to have approximately five ready the same day and will mail them the following morning. *Photo and description by Clinton P. Roberts, MA graduate student, Arizona State University, March 22, 2020. *March 22, 2020 - during COVID-19 pandemic *Clinton P. Roberts, MA graduate student, Arizona State University,