Sewing is mostly a hobby for me, but sometimes it’s a necessity—I need to create something I need to use now.

Sewing isn’t always glamorous. Sometimes, sewing is necessary. It’s not all hobby and unicorns and rainbows. For me, the last month or so has consisted of necessary sewing, mainly making masks for my school kids to wear at school. I also made a couple of L’il Knot Bags by indigobird, because I thought I might use them to hold used masks.

Here’s the deal: my kids have to wear masks at school. If they have to wear masks, well, they should have fun masks to wear. So, before the beginning of the school year when it was s—l—o—w—l—y becoming apparent that they should be wearing a mask at school, I rifled through my fabric stash and pulled fabrics they could choose from for their masks. (They enjoyed picking the fabric.)

I then decided I’d make them a set of Halloween-themed masks. And, while I’m way over sewing masks at this point, I have already acquired fabric to make winter-themed masks. (There is no way I am going to waste time and fabric on holiday-themed masks that they’d only wear a couple of weeks. Winter masks can be worn December and January. Maybe February.)

The worst part of making the Halloween masks? When I cut out 24 ear straps and realized that I cut them in the wrong direction along the knit fabric. Bah! It happens. Side note: I’ve found that cutting an old t-shirt into 1” strips creates ear straps that are comfortable.

I’ll refrain from telling you all the details about my masks. At this point, everyone should have found a mask pattern and materials that works for them. If you just gotta know, leave a comment or send me a message via my contact page.

The L’il Knot Bags came together easily enough. I made a small and medium-size bag. Originally, I thought one would work well to hang on a hook and have my kids deposit their mask into at the end of the school day. But, ends up the hook I have by the front door works well for this purpose. (They hang their mask by its lanyard on the hook.) The bags are functional and fun so I’m sure I’ll find a purpose for them. Another side note: that small bag is made from the fabric I used to mend my M&M’s Quilt and Yellow Quilt (that’s its official name, y’all—ha!). I was pleasantly surprised these two fabrics coordinate so well!

Necessary sewing can be fun. I mean, it’s great to be able to justify sneaking off to my sewing machine because I have to get these masks done before school starts! But, sometimes it’s sluggish. When it was feeling like that, I promised myself that once I was done, I could move on to something more fun, like working on the next quilt in my queue.

Here are more examples of what I consider to be necessary sewing: visibly hemming jeans, making handkerchiefs, and sewing baby bibs.

What having you been sewing lately because you have to, not necessarily because you want to?