bearing blog

My no-sew community mask method.

Today, the mayor of my city, Minneapolis, announced that next week cloth masks will be mandatory here in "indoor spaces of public accommodation."  So that seems as good a time as any to write a fairly practical post.

In other words:   Today I tell you how I do something that, if you wanted to do it my way, you'd probably be able to figure it out yourself.  But hey, why not, I'm a little writer's-blocked.

Disclaimer:  I am not a professional dispenser of legal or medical advice, and I have not done an exhaustive literature search regarding polyester knit fabric and droplet control, only a cursory one.  I hope to get around to that sometime before I start shopping in stores regularly again.  But I'm also not going to let that stop me from blogging.

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I'm going to show you the fog-free, not-too-sweaty, NO-SEW mask method I came up with using things I already had in my house.  

Me with my arm through a tube bandanna.

What I already had in my house:  about six of these stretchy polyester tube bandannas, or you might see them called "multipurpose running headband."

Most of the ones we have are made by Buff (available at a lot of different places, including REI and Amazon).  Buff Original Multifunctional Headwear is a little heavier; Buff Coolnet fabric is a little more lightweight.   The one I am showing you today is an adult size, but personally, I prefer the junior/kids' size; it fits a little tighter.   

All those will run you $20-26 at full price.   You can find similar, much less expensive ones at Decathlon (like this one); my favorite is the Quechua MH 500 Children's Hiking Headband, though just now it seems to be out of stock in the US.  Here it is in the UK.

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A word about stretchy polyester as a mask material:

I wish I didn't have to waste time explaining this, but I'm talking about community masking for source control here.   I am not talking about self-protection, and I am certainly not talking about the kind of PPE you need in medical settings or being a caregiver for sick people.

A homemade cloth mask for community masking has two purposes.   (1) to reduce the number and velocity of droplets that come out of the wearer's mouth and nose into the surrounding environment and (2) to comply with building rules or local regulations that require people to wear cloth masks when they are around other people.  

Perhaps such a mask will also confer some protection against inhaling other people's face-hole droplets.  That is beside the point for my purposes.  I'm wearing this mask to help protect my neighbor, just in case I am an asymptomatic carrier of infection.  I am glad to see my neighbor wearing a mask to protect me. 

Those formalities out of the way:  I am not representing this type of mask as more effective, as a community protective strategy, than any other type of cloth or paper mask. 

There is reason to believe that some fabrics are intrinsically better than others at filtering out droplets of the relevant size.  Konda et al. put out a preprint describing air filtration experiments in which they passed air containing aerosolized saline through fabric samples; different fabrics showed very different results, and combinations of fabrics appeared to be generally better than single fabrics.   They caution, of course, that the intrinsic filtration efficiency of the fabric isn't the only important factor.  Indeed, the better the mechanical filtration, the more air pressure it takes to breathe through the mask fabric, and the more likely that air will escape around the edges.  The shape of the mask and how it fits to your face are factors---as well as whether you find the mask comfortable enough to keep it on.  

I have been watching for data about hydrophilic and hydrophobic mask fibers.  A lot of people are writing about cotton quilting fabric and not that many people are writing about polyester knit.  Polyester is generally a hydrophobic, water-repelling fabric, although the manufacturer may have treated the surfaces of the fibers in ways that affect their hydrophobicity; and often you find it in blends with hydrophilic (water-attracting) fibers such as cotton.  One might expect that a hydrophobic fiber network would be less likely to catch droplets of water-rich spittle than a hydrophilic one.  But Konda et al. found that a polyester-Spandex chiffon fabric (a woven fabric, not a knit) was a remarkably efficacious filter medium, possibly because it---like the material in N95 masks---holds an electrostatic charge that traps small particles.  A relatively new preprint by Aydin et al. is notable because not only does it include data on polyester knits, it considers the breathability of the fabric and also how easily it becomes soaked with moisture.    

I'm not aware yet of much data regarding the effectiveness of different kinds of fabric in actual use, sewn as masks, and fitted onto people's faces, at filtering air that actually contains viral particles.  But it does seem clear that wide acceptance of plain paper unfitted surgical masks significantly reduce the spread of respiratory diseases.  So for now, I'm going on the assumption that, with community masking, the most important thing is that as many people as possible find a well-fitting mask that they can and will wear, comfortably, whenever they are out.   

And I think this is pretty comfortable, and fits nice and snug with no air going around the edges.  I can add an extra layer of filtering fabric if I want.  So this is the main thing I do when I am out and about.

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Step by step, starting with the multifunctional running headwear:

1.  Put it around my neck, before clipping my hair out of the way.  Then wash hands!

You might like the way it looks more if you put it on reverse-side-out at this point, but for me it works best right-side out.

 

2.  Spectacles out of the way, the top edge goes over the nose.

If you are very, very sensitive to having tight fabric covering your mouth and nose, you could stop here.   This fits very loosely and covers well past the chin.  It will comply with most places' rules about wearing face coverings, I expect.  I would recommend taking up some of the slack, if there is any, or else using clips to secure the back of your mask into your hair or perhaps to your hat.  It's better if you don't have to adjust it and if it doesn't fall down by itself.

But I want a tightly-fitting, secure mask with more layers over my face, so...

3.  Take hold of the bottom edge of the mask where it passes behind your neck....

    

 

4. .... and pull it up, flipping it reverse-side out.  You can pull it as far as up over the top of your head.

How far you pull it depends on how tight you want that edge to be under your chin. 

Right here is where I stop when I am using the bandanna to make a face mask for my six-year-old and my ten-year-old.  It is comfortable, it stays put, and they think they look fierce in it.

 

5.  Now we tighten it over the nose.  We do this by grabbing the other edge of the mask, the one that crosses over your nose and under the part covering your ears, and is now behind your neck.  Grab it and pull it straight away from your neck.  You will feel that edge tightening over the bridge of your nose.

 

6.   Then, much like you tightened the first edge, pull it up behind your head, folding it right-side out.   Again, how far you pull it depends on how tight you need it to be over your nose.  Don't worry if it isn't perfect quite yet.

 

7.  You may have noticed that, so far, there's only one layer of fabric over your nose and mouth.  Let's fix that.  There's plenty of extra fabric to fold here.  You can fold the top edge down, showing the reverse side of the fabric, and get two layers quite easily.    (If you stop here, maybe you would prefer to have started with the bandanna reverse-side-out.)  But I prefer to do a little fancier folding...

   

8.  Flip that edge back up and now there's three layers over the nose.

9.  You can do a similar thing with the bottom edge and get two or three layers over your mouth.  I do find that, however you fold it, it's better to have the very bottom edge go under your chin instead of across your face in some way, since that helps it be held snugly over your face by the tension of the edge passing over the top of your head.

This makes a little pocket which you can use to add an optional extra layer of filtering material!  

 

Today's optional extra filtering material will be Scott Shop Towels, cut into a shape that seems to stay put on my face in this mask.  I am not recommending this particular fabric for any other reason besides the fact that I have it in my house and it is an absorbent non-woven breathable food-safe fabric that I can cut with scissors, which happens to be a color that contrasts with my mask so you can see it in the pictures.  I don't actually know what they are made of (apparently Scott keeps that secret).  Replace it with anything that you have decided will enhance your face mask.

 

10.  If I am using the extra filtering material, I tuck it behind the folded-over flaps, both the one coming down over my nose and the one coming up from my chin.  This takes some adjusting of the folds to make sure I have enough material to work with.  

 

11.  A little fine adjustment across the nose.  I take up a little bit of slack and pull it below my cheekbones at the edges, by tucking it further under the twist at the temple.  

 

12.  Eyeglasses (fog check:  zero) and hat.  Done!

 

Here are the advantages I see to this type of face covering:

• Machine washable, quick-drying
• Sweat-wicking fabric
• Easy to obtain two, three, maybe even more layers across the face
• Fairly stylish
• Can vary the tightness from quite loose to quite snug
• Can put in an extra filter if you want
• I bet you could wear it over an N95 if you wanted to
• YMMV, but it doesn't fog my glasses
• No sewing
• Stays in place, no need to touch it frequently
• Kids seem to like it
• Doesn't hurt your ears or tangle in your hair (though I'm much more comfortable with my hair put up)
• Without the extra filter:  Easy to breathe through
• If you take it off, for example, to drive from place to place, it will just stay comfortably around your neck

Potential disadvantages:

• Polyester knit is fairly loose-weave and its specific filtration efficacy is not known.  This is the biggest caveat.  It's one reason why I try to get at least three layers over my mouth and nose.
• Some brands are pricey
• Maybe it will fog your glasses and you'll have to add some wire or something
• It's a little hard to get it just right without a mirror (at least at first)

Give it a try and see what you think.

Repeated Disclaimer:  I am not a professional dispenser of legal or medical advice, and I have not done an exhaustive literature search to determine if there is any other available data regarding polyester knit fabric as part of masks for source control in the community.    

A declining sense of danger.

Here's something odd about me in the continuing weeks of the pandemic:  as time goes on, I feel safer, but I probably am in reality less safe.

I date my personal lockdown from March 15, easy to remember, the ides of March.  On Friday, March 13, we headed west for our Utah ski vacation, got a little way into South Dakota, sanitized a hotel room, and spent the night.  The next morning, after consulting some more with our Utah friend, we turned around and headed back home instead.  Early Sunday I went for one last trip to the grocery store, and that was it.

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All my plans, like everyone's plans, changed at once.  This is a situation that makes me particularly uneasy; I'm not at all good at changing my plans. 

I spent about a month actually afraid.   I had trouble eating, I had trouble sleeping, I mainlined the news out of Italy and New York City, I obsessively catalogued the freezer and locked the pantry to keep the children from snacking on our hoard.  (Lest you think I starved them, I provided a bin full of permitted snacks).  For a couple of weeks we ate only out of the pantry.    I didn't go outside except to take long solitary walks on empty streets, crossing to avoid other people, bundled in coat and hat that seemed to make my face covering and gloves more normal, just part of living in Minnesota.

And then it started to wear off. 

I arranged for grocery delivery.  (I washed the containers as they came in.) We ordered pizza, we went to pick up takeout.   We started ordering other things, first only essentials, later things just because we wanted them. (I put on gloves to cut open the boxes.)  

The weather warmed up and I went in the fenced-in backyard barefoot and barefaced.  I put the gloves away.  I took longer walks in the sun with the mask but no hat and coat.  

I started to feel safe again.

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I guess I only have the energy for so many weeks of fear and grief, compounded by a grave gratefulness that (despite worrying) we have so far been relatively untouched.  And of course, compounded further by anger at everyone whose incompetence, malice, or cowardice did its own small part to help this global catastrophe make a smoldering home in our country.

And then there is the bit about having trouble with changed plans.  Eventually our changed circumstances, here in the United States, began to feel like a new normal.  And I began to see other plans, coming visible over the old ones like lemon-juice writing over a candle flame.  A plan to stay home, to wait and see, to keep on keeping on; a plan to wait, likely till fall, a plan for this summer to be a lost summer, a quiet, stay-at-home summer, a contemplative, cloistered summer.  Anything happening could be a surprise and a bonus. 

We developed a new routine, punctuated by take-out meals.  Monday pizza lunch, Thursday casual dinner, Saturday nice dinner.  The groceries come on Tuesday.    We drank more wine.  The teenager's home weightlifting setup arrived; I started strength training every day, and doing yoga videos in between.

And in the routine, I found I could eat again, sleep again.

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Here's the really odd thing.  In Minnesota, we have not yet hit the peak.  The total cases are rising, rather alarmingly, and our testing has not caught up.  I approved of the governor's relatively slow pace of re-opening:  the stay-at-home order, the closing of schools; the buying of time; followed by cautious re-opening of businesses based on whether they could safely operate; the ten-person limit on gatherings, the suspension of public religious services.   Perhaps it's done what it was meant to, pushed the peak later, gave the health care system a chance to be ready. 

The delaying of the peak does, however, mean that every day there are more infected people, perhaps asymptomatic, out in the community.  It is objectively more dangerous now then it was on the Ides of March. 

And yet, back then, I felt, well, terrified, for myself and for others around me.  I just wanted us to stay in the house and not leave it, not call delivery to my door, last as long as we can on the canned goods and frozen meat and dried pasta.

And now, I don't feel that way.  I am starting to think thoughts about maybe, if I run out of something we need, going to the store (masked) and going in and picking out the thing and buying it. 

I'm not going to do that, because I don't have to.  Delivery here is alive and well and slots are not scarce, and I am happy to tip double or more what I did before.   Lots of places have curbside pickup.  If my toner cartridge runs out, I can order one online (along with a bunch of pens and paper and things, to save trips) and drive to the office supply store where a human being who works at that store will put it in the trunk of my van, which has a button-operated lift gate, and the human being will earn his or her pay while never having to come within six feet of me.  

But when I think about putting on a mask and driving to a store and going in to buy my one thing, it doesn't feel frightening anymore.  But it did before.  Even though now it's probably really more dangerous than it was then.

I think I have simply become used to the sense of danger.

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An alternate explanation:  I have a lot of faith in my fellow humans, maybe too much.  "People are socially distancing now; they are wearing masks and avoiding coming too close together; the stores are emptier, and also the various shops have put up barriers and tape on the floor and things, and have learned a little about what works and what doesn't, so even though there are more infected people, the people are not getting as close together."

Problem:  no data specific to my situation.  I am only projecting, imagining what it is like inside the office supply store where I buy my toner cartridges, inside the co-op where I pick up a gallon of milk midweek, inside the coffee shop that is selling good dark roast to go.  I imagine that everyone is being as careful as I would be.  But reading stories my friends tell on social media, I know that my imagination might be wrong.  

Anyway, it's just an interesting observation about my own cognition.  Whether it's wishful thinking, or projection, or the soothing balm of familiarity, I feel less afraid even as the passing of time likely makes my reason for fear grow greater.  I wonder if my feelings will ever overcome my rational mind; or if someday I will just decide that it's time to go on with life, mask or no mask.  It's hard to believe that I might, but then, we are talking about the humanmind here:  we rationalize, we back-justify, we change our opinions all the time, and tell ourselves stories about how we were right all along.  

At least I'll have this blog post, to limit how much I can fool myself about what I was thinking today.

 

 

Correction, and the damaged icon.

A Facebook friend posted this quote the other day, and I am basically blogging it now just so I can remember it.  

Unless we look at a person and see the beauty there is in this person, we can contribute nothing to him. One does not help a person by discerning what is wrong, what is ugly, what is distorted. Christ looked at everyone he met, at the prostitute, at the thief, and saw the beauty hidden there. Perhaps it was distorted, perhaps damaged, but it was beauty none the less, and what he did was to call out this beauty.

---attributed to Metropolitan Anthony Bloom of Sourozh

The more I look at it, the more I am drawn to it as one of the great principles for governing our voices in the world--I mean, the principle has been around for quite a long time, it's just that this is a very concise and memorable way of putting it.

As I commented when I first saw it, "Good for remembering when someone is wrong on the internet."  But it is more than that, and I keep coming back.

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Who was Metropolitan Anthony of Sourozh?  For years he served as archbishop of the Russian Orthodox Church in Great Britain and Ireland.   He published six books on prayer during his life.  Texts (in English) of numerous sermons are available at this link.  I haven't been able to confirm the quote or figure out which publication it comes from via internet-only searches yet.  This article suggests it might be tracked down in a book about him, This Holy Man by Gillian Crow.

I found other pieces sometimes connected to the quote that go as follows:

This is what we must learn to do with regard to others. But to do so we must first have a purity of heart, a purity of intention, an openness which is not always there - certainly not in me - so that we can listen, can look, and can see the beauty which is hidden. 

Every one of us is in the image of God, and every one of us is like a damaged icon. But if we were given an icon damaged by time, damaged by circumstances, or desecrated by human hatred, we would treat it with reverence, with tenderness, with broken-heartedness. We would not pay attention primarily to the fact that it is damaged, but to the tragedy of its being damaged. We would concentrate on what is left of its beauty, and not on what is lost of its beauty. And this is what we must learn to do with regard to each person as an individual...

...but also – and this is not always as easy – with regard to groups of people, whether it be a parish or a denomination, or a nation. We must learn to look, and look until we have seen the underlying beauty of this group of people. Only then can we even begin to do something to call out all the beauty that is there. Listen to other people, and whenever you discern something which sounds true, which is a revelation of harmony and beauty, emphasize it and help it to flower. Strengthen it and encourage it to live.

(versions of the quote here, here, here)

And a similar quote in this article suggests it might be tracked down via a biographical work, This Holy Man by Gillian Crow.  But that's as far as I got this morning.

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Unless we look at a person and see the beauty there is in this person, we can contribute nothing to him.  

I think a lot of us think that we are justified in criticizing, commenting, and correcting any other person as long as we are correct, or as long as whatever we want to say is important enough. 

But I think it is nearer the truth to accept that we can contribute nothing to a person whom we do not see as a real person, with good in him or her.  What we wish to say might be true.  What we wish to say might be eloquent or beautiful in and of itself.   But without a sense of the human-ness and the intrinsic goodness of the intended recipient, we cannot contribute it:  we can only transmit, or worse, inflict.  

The content of the message, alone, cannot justify every act of communicating it.  That is a type of ends-justify-the-means.   And even if it is a message we are bound to bear, we can only be bound to it in the sense that we are capable of it; and the idea here is that we are not, in fact, capable of "contributing" it to everybody.  And when that's so, the fault is often on the messenger's side. 

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I've heard it said that we should "look for opportunities" to speak the truth.  I guess the idea is to find people in moments when they are open to our message, and strike at the vulnerable moment.  It's better than not looking at the people at all, but even that falls a little flat.   Because when we look at a human being we should see a person for their own sake, not an opportunity to enact our desires or even our mission.    If I, specifically, cannot see the humanity particular person I'm thinking of addressing in a particular moment, "there is nothing I can contribute," and I should probably just shut up and find another conversation.

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But what about when we have a clear duty to correct falsehoods, imposed not by a specific relationship with a person spreading them, but imposed by the ethics inherent to our own position?  If we are scholars, or teachers, or journalists, or editors, or leaders in government, or have pastoral responsibilities?

Such individuals might be bound to correct---not people, exactly---but other people's bad messages.  And really, any of us might be in a position to be able to protect our friends and family, or the wider public, from objectively wrong messages.  Disinformation is a real problem today; friends and acquaintances may be spreading falsehoods, sometimes dangerous ones.   Besides disinformation, some expressions of "mere" opinions can also promote objective falsehoods, such as vile prejudices or broken visions of human dignity.

So sometimes we may rightly judge that we have a duty not to be silent, even if the person spreading misinformation, or vile prejudice, or whatever, is someone we can't bring ourselves to view in the moment as a human being possessing inherent beauty.

(Face it.  Even if we wholly subscribe to the notion of inherent dignity of all human beings:  Some human beings really test us.)

Even if it is very difficult to see the goodness and humanity of a given spreader-of-untruths, so that we cannot contribute anything to that person, I think it's possible to counter their misinformation.  The key is speaking to the other listeners, refuting the message, offering the better alternative. 

Maybe it's best to acknowledge, at least to ourselves, that we are unlikely to be able to reach the original poster.  We don't know them well enough; we can't see them well enough as human beings; possibly they won't see us, either; all we know is that, from our side, we can't contribute to them; we lack the grace to see them as fully as we should.

But there are other people listening, and we can address ourselves to them instead.  And in the meantime, we should be working on seeing the goodness of humanity in as many people as we can.