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The demand for cloth masks is an absolutely perfect demonstration of the abject failure of free markets to deal with catastrophe. I've been sewing for more than 20 years. And, I've already donated or given away around 100 masks. I'm making more. But, all of this is inefficient.
Because I've been sewing masks, I see the numbers that facilities are requesting. One (of two!) hospitals in the county I grew up in has requested 5,000. A birthing center in South Texas needs 250. Prisons and jails in Chicago, which are hotspots for infection, need THOUSANDS.
I'm fast. And, I'm making a very basic pattern based on the CDC pattern, modified slightly for durability. Each mask takes probably a good 10 minutes of work, and $1-2 in materials. I've made 100 masks, so that's $150-200 in materials plus at least 10 hours of labor.
5,000 cloth masks made this way would be more than 80 hours of labor and $7,500 in materials. The demand here is equivalent to tens of thousands of dollars. Much of it being contributed freely by sewists. I've made 100 masks. I have friends who've made 5 times that.
We're individual people trying to help. At this point, I'm begging fabric from neighbors -- almost all the inexpensive quilting cotton is sold out, so yardage has gotten prohibitively pricy. @Spoonflower offered an amazing deal on yardage, but they're taking 3 weeks to print.
1/4" elastic is basically out everywhere. I've been using 1/8" elastic and elastic cord, buying bags of remnants off Etsy, because I can't find 1/8" readily, either.
I joke, sometimes, that I make games the market won't bear. That's true. But, I'm also making masks now because the market won't bear them. The market will not bear the basic safety of millions of people. The market cannot bear that. The market doesn't give a shit about you.
I'm so angry, and I'm so tired, and my shoulder hurts from cutting and cutting and cutting, but as soon as fabric comes out of the dryer, I'm going back to us. The market won't bear making people safety materials. I won't bear leaving them exposed.
There are 2.3 million people incarcerated in the U.S. There are thousands of immigrants held in concentration camps across the U.S. Every single one of them is at risk from dying from this -- from our neglect, our cruelty, from being what the market won't bear. Don't look away.
