May 02, 2020
If you have some basic sewing supplies at home, why not consider making a homemade face mask to donate to our local Ottawa hospitals. The Children’s Hospital of Eastern Ontario is now accepting homemade masks, which can be dropped off in donation bins at the front door of their campus at 410 Smyth Road on Mondays (between 11:00 am and 1pm) and Thursdays (between 6:00 pm and 8:00 pm).
CHEO has a website with more information. Here you will find information and instructions for mask making, as well as contact information for your questions.
If you want to craft a mask for yourself or your family members to wear personally, there are a lot of different free patterns and instructions available online. Here are a few resources that we like:
- The first resource shows three different homemade masks, one that requires no sewing at all! None of the patterns suggested here require any special sewing supplies, just cotton fabric, some thread and some ties to hold the masks around the ears. View the instructions for three mask options.
- This tutorialshows three different mask styles, the third is a variation on the Instuctables pattern available below. Instructables has a printable pattern. If you prefer to sew from a pattern!
- The library has further resources if you want to improve your sewing skills before taking on one of these projects: First Time Sewing: The Absolute Beginner’s Guideincludes projects which introduce new sewing concepts and skills.
- And if you don’t have a sewing machine, Basic Hand Sewing, will teach you the basic hand stiches and the uses for each of them.
Blog post contributed by Martha from our Rockcliffe Park branch and Robin from our Sunnyside branch.