Face Mask Science 3, August 2020 edition

Do you have face mask confusion?  Do conflicting headlines give you headaches?

I sort of feel like I've read enough to know that I should wear one whenever I am indoors in any place that is not my own home.  I should also carry one whenever I am outdoors and be ready to put it on whenever anyone is nearby.

There is no way to reduce risk 100%, but we can reduce it to pretty low by:

• Social distancing in the sense that we minimize going out where we could encounter other people--especially in poorly-ventilated indoor places
• Social distancing in the sense of putting as much space (and air) between you and others outside your household when you do go out
• Universal mask wearing, especially indoors
• Good hygiene (cleaning surfaces, washing hands, not touching face, etc)

The even better news is emerging evidence from multiple countries and situations/studies that show that universal masking reduces the severity of Covid-19 illness if you do catch it. The idea is that viral load matters.  The higher the viral load, the more severe the illness. 

• Try to avoid situations where you can be exposed to the virus.  
• Assume that everyone is contagious (even though usually, it's less than 1%, often much less than 1% of the population.) 
• Then minimize your exposure.

The shaped 2-layer cotton masks I sew are fine for essential shopping trips and the occasional doctor visit.  The problem is finding masks that are comfortable enough to wear when being active (walking, biking, gardening.)

I made some gaiter-style masks with poly/lycra knit sewn into a tube, with a ponytail port at each end.  They were comfortable enough to wear for exercise, but a recent article said that gaiter masks might be worse than nothing.  That made no sense.

Fortunately, Professor Brent Stephens wrote 6000 words about what we know and don't know about masks, different materials, and Covid-19. What kind of mask should I be wearing to protect against COVID-19?

He has some thoughts on Gaiter-Gate, which I need not replicate here. Go read his analysis on why that gaiter measurement (with no control) is highly suspect.  Other scientists pointed out that the measurement that showed a "fleece gaiter" was worse than a bare face at containing droplets might have been measuring fleece fiber shedding instead of droplets.

Professor Linsey Marr wrote how she runs with a gaiter and doubles it up when anyone is nearby.  She posted a presentation on the blocking efficiency of neck gaiters.  The bottom line is that the thin kind that I sew blocks 50-90% of particle sizes that matter when worn in a single layer.  When doubled over, they block 90% over the entire range.

Lab setup:


The data:

The airbrush and spray bottle produce large droplets that, in the absence of a mask or neck gaiter, land on glass slides attached to the opposite manikin’s face. When either neck gaiter was affixed to the spraying manikin, no droplets were observed on the opposite manikin. Thus, the neck gaiters are 100% efficient at blocking these droplets from reaching the opposite manikin’s face.

I know that I sound like a broken record, but the best mask is the one that you will keep on.

Anyway, I am heartened from all of this advice from scientific experts.  It makes Covid-19 less scary.  I have enough to worry about with the elections and the census. 

In other news, this pandemic has made me read up on indoor ventilation and reminded me of sick building syndrome.  I was the canary in the goldmine for that and remember being treated like I was crazy.  One doctor even told me that he ordinarily sends patients who present with my symptoms to psychiatrists but he didn't think that was my problem; after all, I don't dislike technology and chemicals if I decided to major in it.  I'm assembling a blog post with very interesting things I learned.  I even ordered test equipment for my home. 

The mask series.

More face mask science

I'm emotionally exhausted by the pandemic and all the crappy news.  I've posted links to useful Covid-19 information when I come across them on microblogging platforms like IG and Twitter.  It's just easier than blogging.  But, there is also value to putting it on a blog, with more context and explanations.

I've written about masks in The mask/no mask dilemma back on March 18, when some US government messaging was that masks were not effective for the lay public. A lot of people have written about that bad messaging and I'm not going to belabor it here.  Professor Zeynep Tufecki does it as well as anyone.

Anyway, I also posted some cool visual proof of the efficacy of masks in This is why we wear masks. Those are Schlieren images and show breath vapor, not the motion of aerosols and droplets, which will stay even closer than the images shown.

Almost any type of cloth face covering will catch droplets. Most multi-layered ones will catch the majority of the aerosols as well. Masks hold your air closer to your face than without masks.

As Dr Lucy Jones says, "don't share your air."

In my first post, I (and many readers) didn't know what they meant by "Cotton Mix" but were impressed by its filtration efficacy.

After reading this subsequent article, I learned that it was Cotton/Poly blend. Polyester, and any fabric that has static cling, has electrostatic properties that attract and hold particles. That's why your furnace filter is made of polyester fabric. In fact, some people were buying furnace filters and cutting them up to insert inside their DIY masks.

Read Aerosol Filtration Efficiency of Common Fabrics Used in Respiratory Cloth Masks. I excerpted some figures and a table from the paper. Even though it is published in a scientific journal, it's written so they lay public can understand it. It is freely available and I hope you download and read it. It's good.

We have carried out these studies for several common fabrics including cotton, silk, chiffon, flannel, various synthetics, and their combinations. Although the filtration efficiencies for various fabrics when a single layer was used ranged from 5 to 80% and 5 to 95% for particle sizes of <300 and="" nm="">300 nm, respectively, the efficiencies improved when multiple layers were used and when using a specific combination of different fabrics. 

This figure shows that filters can trap particles by either mechanical filtration (tight weave) or by electrostatic attraction.

Cotton, the most widely used material for cloth masks performs better at higher weave densities (i.e., thread count) and can make a significant difference in filtration efficiencies.

Notice that Cotton Quilt fabric (medium weave 120 threads per inch) performs better overall than the 600 threads per inch Cotton except at larger particle sizes?  Looser weave Cotton (cheaper quilting cotton at 80 threads per inch) does a lousy job.

Filtration efficiencies of the hybrids (such as cotton–silk, cotton–chiffon, cotton–flannel) was >80% (for particles <300 and="" nm="">90% (for particles >300 nm). We speculate that the enhanced performance of the hybrids is likely due to the combined effect of mechanical and electrostatic-based filtration.

The hybrids do a better job than pure Cotton. Some even outperform surgical masks, which were never designed to catch smaller particles.  (They were designed to catch larger droplets exhaled by health care workers to protect the patients.)

Our studies also imply that gaps (as caused by an improper fit of the mask) can result in over a 60% decrease in the filtration efficiency, implying the need for future cloth mask design studies to take into account issues of “fit” and leakage, while allowing the exhaled air to vent efficiently.

The biggest factor is fit. Isn't that the #1 reason why we sew?  We can customize the fit.

We also sew for improved comfort and face masks are no exception.  If the mask fits and is comfortable, we can wear them for as long as we need.

Pay attention to the pressure drop.  It doesn't matter if the weave and fit are tight, but it's too hot and uncomfortable to wear.  I know that I can wear a real surgical mask while riding my bike or for a long-haul airplane flight.  So I want a combo that has a similar pressure drop of 2.5.  I'll sew something with a good enough filtration efficiency, with the same comfort rating.

Overall, we find that combinations of various commonly available fabrics used in cloth masks can potentially provide significant protection against the transmission of aerosol particles.

Notice that, in every case, more layers offers more protection. 

If you read up on Brownian motion, you learn that smaller particles move faster and encounter more obstacles than larger particles.  So your fabric or filter material doesn't have to be tight enough to mechanically trap the smallest aerosols.  A filter can alter the particle trajectory so that it comes at a slant instead of perpendicular to the filter.  That makes the particle more likely to be caught by subsequent layers. 

That's the magic behind multiple layers.

Knit fabric structure kind of has those layer properties, which is why just one layer of t-shirt jersey can be effective.  Aerosol expert, Professor Linsey Marr, Tweeted that she wears a knit gaiter-style mask single layer when running outside and then doubles it up (by rolling the top over her nose and mouth) if anyone is nearby.

I've come to the realization that I need a wardrobe of masks for different situations.  I'll make some knit gaiter ones for outdoor exercise.  I'll make some fitted woven ones for my essential trips to indoor locales.

It's time to bust out all my cotton/poly or cotton/silk mixes for fitted masks and some high-performance poly knits for gaiters.

I wear a mask to protect you. You wear a mask to protect me. We can sew our own and make it a fashion statement.

Finally, read Masks offer much more protection against coronavirus than many think. Even if the mask is not 100% efficient at filtering out aerosols and droplets containing Coronavirus, it reduces the dose of exposure. So, even if we do get sick, the illness is milder.

"Perfect is the enemy of good," means that waiting for perfection to act is a bad strategy.  We can always strive to do better, learn more.  But we already know enough and have the tools to reduce our collective risk by a huge amount.  Let's all be good enough and defeat this pandemic.

This is why we wear masks

We have a preponderance of evidence that Covid-19 is spread by aerosols and large droplets expelled through our mouths when we talk and through our mouth and nose when we sneeze or cough.  We also have plenty of evidence that (nearly) universal mask-wearing in public is extremely effective in Reducing transmission of SARS-CoV-2.  The linked article by Prof. Kim Prather et al is written extremely clearly in plain English and I highly recommend reading it.

I'm embedding two videos because they are helpful to understand social distancing and wearing masks.  But, it's important to keep in mind that they are showing hot air instead of droplet and aerosol motion, which does not spread as far.

Schlieren or shadowgraph imagery shows changes of thermal patterns in the air. We expel heated air, which will mix with ambient air and might waft upwards (hot air rises.)  Large droplets are heavier and will fall downwards. Aerosols might hang around a few minutes to hours, but eventually fall.

With these caveats, these images nevertheless demonstrate the effectiveness of wearing face masks that cover the nose and mouth.

First, this charming* video of NIST scientist, Matthew E. Staymates, working from home. Note how his breath stays much closer to his head when he wears a mask vs when he doesn't. This is why mask wearing, along with social distancing, dramatically reduces transmission risk.  Remember, this is showing hot air; virus-containing droplets will most likely by caught in any type of mask as long as it covers the mouth and nose.



I particularly like that he wears different styles of cloth masks sewn by NIST colleagues, who did socially-distanced handoffs outside his home.  All types of masks work as long as they are comfortable enough for you to actually wear them over both your nose and mouth.

This older video demonstrates how much air you exchange with others just in normal face-to-face conversation.  It starts with normal nose breathing, then mouth breathing, talking, coughing, conversation, etc.



I'm cautious and minimize my shopping trips.  When I go into stores, I use hand sanitizer, then put on my mask and then enter.  I don't touch the mask until I get back outside.  This protects me.  It protects you.

Give people without masks a very wide berth, 2 meters or more, and minimize your exposure to them.  If someone takes off their mask to talk in a store, run away.  They've contaminated everything within droplet distance.  If they talk loudly, that can be far greater than 2 m.   If a store allows unmasked people to enter, assume all surfaces are contaminated.  (This creates so much more work and risk for retail workers.)

If all staff and shoppers are wearing masks, I would not stress about breaking the 2 m bubble for a short time. Remember, it's also the viral load in a short amount of time that is dangerous.  If you get a tiny bit of viral load, and you have a healthy immune system, your body would destroy the viruses before they can get a toe-hold in your respiratory tract.

When I see people wear masks under their nose, I give them wider berth, but don't say anything to them about it.  They tried, but maybe they are too uncomfortable.  Or maybe they are conspiracy theorists who don't understand that oxygen and carbon dioxide pass through the masks just fine.  Either way, I don't want to engage with them.  A mask that covers their mouth would still contain droplets expelled by talking unless they sneeze or cough.

For those of us in low-risk settings (not health care workers or people who work around others all day) the best mask is the one you will actually wear.  If you try to make it too efficient at filtering, it can be difficult to breath through, or get soggy from your exhaled breath.  If you take off your mask when indoors (other than in your own home,) then you lost protection.

I walk and bike outdoors without a mask, but carry one in case it gets crowded.  I'm coming around to the idea that perfect is the enemy of good and I may sew lower-coverage masks that don't extend as far across my cheeks for outdoor exercise and gardening.  The best mask is the one that you will keep on.

* Maybe I'm biased because I got my PhD at a NIST lab.

Hacking the pattern or using what I've got

Sewing face masks is not fun. I'd much rather sew a lace-trimmed top for my daughter than sew face masks for her. (Though I did do both.) I finished this after 2 AM, put it in her bathroom, and then she put it on right after breakfast. I think she likes it. But not enough to take out her headphones and pose where the light is better. ;-)

I searched through my pattern collection for my tried and true (TNT) woven t-shirt pattern, but couldn't find it.  I think I may have paired some of my TNT patterns with fabric, and then packed them all away for the move back to LA.  I'm missing several of my favorite patterns and hope to be reunited with them as I slowly unpack and sew through my fabric collection.

I like the way Calvin Klein patterns fit my slightly squared shoulders.  I started with this Vogue 1873 blouse pattern, and traced it onto medical exam table paper.  I just cut it on the fold at the center front, rather than copy all the placket stuff.  I also traced a simple neckline, knowing that I would trim it down further to fit the lace trim. I hoped to make short sleeves, but the fabric was tight.

This worked out much better than I had expected.

I stitched the lace trim to the front piece along the perimeter, trimmed the neckline to 1/4" beyond the edge and bound the neckline with bias binding made from some washed rayon from my scrap bin.

I marked the rough area where I stitched down the lace trim.

Another picture of the top and daughter in their natural habitat.

I worked with a remnant ($3) and some lace ($1) from the baskets at the front of Fabrix, a San Francisco odd jobber selling pre-consumer waste sewing supplies.  They both washed and cleaned up well, but I was alarmed at how much this oxford cloth shrank.  It's a beefy 100% cotton oxford that shrank ~10% in length to 32-34" long by 44" wide.  I barely got the two body pieces to fit.  I then seamed the scraps to make pieces large enough to cut out the sleeves.

Nice flat felled seams on the inside.  If the seam was more off-center and were black, I might have put the selvage fringe on the outside as a design feature.  Ultimately, I decided to put it on the inside.

This is all I had left of the fabric after cutting and sewing.  100% cotton can be put in the compost bin, so this was truly a zero-waste sewing project.

The mask/no mask dilemma

During tree pollen season, I often wear a surgical mask outdoors to minimize allergies.  In February, I tried to restock ahead of the season. I also heard about a very bad flu virus that would make wearing a mask in crowded places prudent.  Too late, I realized that, not only were the stores near me sold out, they were not going to get any more in the foreseeable future.

I read intriguing posts on the internets about homemade masks, but wasn't sure if they were nothing more than dangerous placebos.

Please read Zeynep Tufekci's Why Telling People They Don’t Need Masks Backfired (NYT paywall)

First, she is right about the messaging.  Lying to the public, even for altruistic reasons, is still counterproductive.  I prefer to be treated like an adult and told that there are people who cannot stay home and need the masks more than I do.

Surgical masks, though not foolproof, offer meaningful protection for both the wearer and the people they are in contact with.

This doesn't help me now when stores don't have anything to buy and my doctor is saving masks for her own use and for her most critically ill patients (or caregivers.)  Professor Tufekci helpfully added a link to a paper about the effectiveness of different materials you can use to sew your own face masks.

I'm about to crank out some masks for my daily walks to protect me from pollen and stray human contact. I'm also making some for people I know who are essential workers and risking their lives to keep our society going.

This table is helpful, but takes a little interpretation. The first 2 columns are virus reductions over wearing no mask with surgical masks and home-made masks with a variety of materials. The third column is the pressure drop across the fabric.

That pressure drop is really important. If a mask is too hot, and you take it off, you are in danger again.  So you want to find that sweet spot of comfortable to wear for hours, and good filtration.  My normal go-to mask is the 3M micropore one.  I can wear it comfortably for long haul flights, taking it off only to eat and drink.

Two layers of a tea towel (a thicker fabric,) is as effective as a surgical mask, but it will be as comfortable as wearing a vacuum cleaner bag.

@pdxsquared showed pictures of her home-made ear loop masks.  She also shared per pattern.  One commentator said that she was irresponsible for posting it--2 layers of quilting cotton isn't real protection.  Well, the peer-reviewed lab-tested experiment showed that 2 layers of a pillowcase (percale, similar to quilting cotton) is 62% effective vs the 96% effectiveness of a real surgical mask, and has a similar comfort rating.  You should absolutely minimize contact with other people right now.  But, if you have to go out to work or get supplies or exercise, wearing DIY masks is definitely helpful.

I'm intrigued by the 75% effectiveness of "cotton mix" but can't figure out what that is.  I may try some cotton/nylon/spandex shirting I was saving for a special project someday.  That day is today.  I'm also going to use fun quilting and shirting fabrics.  Right now, I need more joy and fun.

BTW, I saw an old DIY emergency face mask pattern that suggested using 3 layers of cotton, laid at right angles.  This makes sense because fabrics typically have higher thread count (and smaller holes) in one direction.  Perhaps I should use cotton mix with a layer of silk scrap in the middle?

ASIDE:
If you are in a good financial place, spread the wealth.

I told our housecleaner that, because my husband continues to get paid, so will she.  She cannot work from home so I'm just mailing the check to her house.  Her husband is heroically driving city buses to get essential workers to their jobs--and doing it without protective equipment.  I'm sending a bunch of masks to them along with the check.

We're paying students to weed our yard (while staying socially distant.)  I'm making masks for them, too.  I know it helps with pollen and mold.

Show me what you are making and how you are coping.  We're anxious, but know that we are luckier than most.  I'm in no danger of running out of fabric.  ;-)

UPDATE:
Physician/sewing blogger Kaddidlehopper has some good tips and a free pattern: https://katiekadiddlehopper.blogspot.com/2020/03/fabric-surgical-style-mask-free-pattern.html

ElleC left a link in the comments on how Dr Dr Chen Xiaoting improvises surgical masks with disposable tissues or TP encased in washable/reusable cotton.
https://mustsharenews.com/cloth-face-mask/

Organic =/= Sustainable

I cringe every time I read someone call organic cotton sustainable.  It uses so much more land and water.  Natural dyes can double the amount of land required to produce fabric.

I know that I can never convert the die-hard purists, but they are probably not reading this blog anyway.

Technology Review (MIT's Alumni magazine) sums up the current state of our knowledge, Sorry—organic farming is actually worse for climate change.

Organic practices can reduce climate pollution produced directly from farming – which would be fantastic if they didn’t also require more land to produce the same amount of food.

Clearing additional grasslands or forests to grow enough food to make up for that difference would release far more greenhouse gas than the practices initially reduce, a new study in Nature Communications finds.

I've written ad nauseum about how organic cotton uses more water, which is scarce in many of the arid regions where the highest quality cotton is grown, like in my home region of the US Southwest.  Irrigation with groundwater has left the soil so salty that crops can not grow. 

(Alfalfa is grown in the desert because it will tolerate salty soil and water.)

Genetically modified cotton grows with half the water as organic cotton, and it can tolerate salty soil.  You can use the organic practices of crop rotation, cover crops and compost/manure and combine it with technology in a responsible way. 

For instance, GMO Bt cotton manufactures its own protection against cotton borers and bollworms.  In fact, the higher the salt content of the soil, the more pesticides the plant produces.  Bt cotton is sold with and without resistance to Round-up.  Most of the seeds are sold with resistance to both, but that doesn't mean farmers are spraying Round-up willy nilly.

Most farmers are smart enough not to spray chemicals that they don't need.  If weeds are not a problem in that field in that year, then they won't spray.

Small-scale organic farm are laboratories where farmers can test novel ways to grow crops.  Scientists in labs can also develop and test new crops. Then we can combine the best of both approaches.

I read that only 1% of US-grown cotton is organic, while 15-16% (and climbing) are grown from GMO seeds and unsprayed.  It's sometimes sold as "clean cotton" or "better cotton" and purchased by IKEA and Uniqlo.

I read laments by younger sewists on blogs and Instagram that they are sorry they can't afford to sew with organic fabrics.  That saddens me.  We don't have enough planets for everyone to go fully organic.  But we can blend the best of organic practices with technology for a sustainable future for everyone--not just the rich.

Wear polyester if you like

I read Sewing Eco-Guilt? Killer! and groaned. I left a comment but it didn't appear so I'm leaving my response here.

I'm a scientist and I don't care if you wear polyester or organic hemp as long as you curtail driving and flying (and eat less beef.)

I don't even care if your car is electric.  I just want you out of a car.

Yes, polyester is made of fossil fuels, but at least it's sequestered in your blouse. Nothing degrades in a landfill, polyester and natural fibers alike.  The important thing is to cut down on our consumption.

I wrote a blog series about sustainability and sewing.  It has links to actual data.

Towards a better wardrobe

Kate at the Time to Sew blog (@timetosew on IG) asked me what I think about the arguments presented by Nina Marenzi on the Wardrobe Crisis podcast.  I listened to the entire 36 minute podcast just so I can hear a few minutes of scientific tidbits.

(Why are podcasts so popular?  Are we being gas-lit about the popularity of podcasts the same way FB lied about the popularity of video news?  Don't busy people want more info in less time?)

Nina Marenzi made some good points, but, there wasn't an opportunity for her to address the issues deeply in 36 minutes (!) while establishing rapport (talking about childhood pets) and establishing culture cred (music), etc.

Anyhoo...

In short, she said that we have a crisis of topsoil.  We are in danger of using up all of the world's topsoil in 60 years unless we change the way we do things.  You get no argument from me on that one.

Then we hit an uh-oh, when she segued into organic agriculture and biodynamic farming.  We use labels as cognitive shorthand; organic is supposed to represent a sustainable way of farming.  It's true that, on average, organic farmer tends to be kinder to the environment than conventional agriculture.  But, if you have been reading my blog, you know that organic is no panacea.

One problem is that organic farming does not necessarily preserve topsoil.  The opening chapters of Michael Pollan's book, The Omnivore’s Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals, deal with how organic lettuce at Whole Foods is grown in northern California.

 The land is tilled, watered and weeds  are allowed to grow. Then they plow the weeds under and repeat the process. Fewer weeds should sprout the second time.  After plowing the weeds under a second time, they actually grow the lettuce.

They follow this wasteful practice in lieu of hand weeding because they simply do not have enough labor to hand weed the enormous acreage required to feed our demand for organic lettuce.

The damage wrought by that organic lettuce is enormous. They lost topsoil with each tilling. They pumped groundwater from a critically overdrafted aquifer to grow two crops of weeds and one crop of lettuce. Along the way, they used up 57 calories of fossil fuels to produce 1 calorie of arugula.

(That is not counting the energy for you to go shop for the arugula and get it home.  I sound like a broken record, but the biggest change you can make is how you (and your stuff) get around.  An electric car sitting in traffic is still another car in traffic.  Get out of your car already.)

Read Organic Pesticides: Not An Oxymoron for an idea of what I am talking about. The problem with EWG's Dirty Dozen is that they only test for synthetic pesticides (the ones not used in organic farming.)  No one is routinely testing for pesticides used in organic farming that can be hazardous to the environment, farm workers, and consumers.

Why You Shouldn't Buy Organic Based on the "Dirty Dozen" List [Updated for 2019]

The “Dirty Dozen” list, which aims to rank the fruits with the most pesticide residue, comes from the Environmental Working Group, and they publish their methodology on the report’s website. They basically download the test results from the USDA’s Pesticide Data Program, which samples produce for pesticide residues, and come up with a ranking score for each fruit or vegetable based on six criteria relating to the number of different pesticide residues seen on produce of that type, the percentage of samples with pesticide residues, and the total amount of pesticide detected.

There’s a problem here. Some pesticides are drastically more toxic than others, but the EWG’s scoring system considers all pesticides to be equal, and they don’t relate the pesticide amounts to known safety standards. Two food scientists did a reality check on the EWG’s numbers from their 2010 list (which uses the same methodology as this year’s). Their analysis was published in the Journal of Toxicology.

They compared the amount of pesticides on each of the Dirty Dozen foods to the chronic reference dose, which is the maximum amount that it’s okay to have if you are eating that food every day of your life. This level, just to be safe, is one hundred times less than the amount that experimental animals were able to consume with no effects. It’s a pretty big safety margin. So how many of the Dirty Dozen exceeded this extremely conservative chronic reference dose? None:

You should read the entire well-researched article.  Author Beth Skwarecki echoes the points chemist and farmer friends have made to me.  It's preferable to buy from a farmer that sprays glyphosate once than from a farmer that sprays organic pesticides repeatedly.  Insects can develop resistance to any pesticide, organic or synthetic.  It's the repeated spraying that breeds pesticide resistance--superbugs and superweeds.

A friend says that he sprays glyphosate once per growing season.  It makes a big difference in his farm's yield and water use.  His orchard is too big to weed manually.  But the glyphosate plus manual weeding of stragglers is working for him, even though he can't sell his fruit as organic.

Did you know that in some parts of India, the chickpea borer has become such a big problem, that farmers cannot grow one of their primary sources of protein?  The best hope for these farmers is to grow BT chickpeas, which are resistant to the borer.  I'm not going to tell a farmer that they are better off starving than using GM technology.

That flexible approach to production that uses technology to improve efficiency while being safer for the environment, the people working in agriculture, and the consumers.

Let's get back to the podcast.  Marenzi made solid points about how we should expand our market basket of fibers beyond cotton and polyester.

She said that polyester makes up 70% of the fiber in global clothing production.  Cotton makes up ~23% and all other fibers make up about 7%.

She said that we should use more linen and hemp, which grow readily with little chemical input and can grow on more marginal land.  One of the big problems with cotton is that it uses up topsoil and water at alarming rates.  It also requires good quality land and fresh water.  GMO cotton can be engineered to grow in soils and with water that contains more salts than organic cotton can tolerate.  In a world with 7 billion people (and growing), we need fiber crops that don't compete with food crops for land and water.

They talked about fiber shedding in laundering and the amount of fibers that end up in the oceans and waterways.  Acrylic sheds the most fibers of all.  I expected cotton and natural fibers to also shed and find their way into the water.  But I did not expect them to persist.  After all, they are biodegradable.  I thought wrong.  The oceans are full of small fibers, natural and synthetic.

This makes me glad that I live in Los Angeles, where our waste water is screened, treated and micro-filtered at a minimum.  Some are even nano-filtered or undergo reverse osmosis and UV treatment to make them potable again.

She mentioned the grave and irreversible damage done by cashmere production that I chronicled in The planetary cost of cashmere.

They discussed problems with viscose/rayon production.  Marenzi noted that viscose/rayon isn't the problem so much as the production process.  You have to soak the cellulosic fibers in strong chemicals to break up the fibers and then use more chemicals to get them to reform into fibers suitable for spinning into yarn.  Wikipedia on rayon has a good summary of the processes.

They mentioned the water use in viscose/rayon production, but didn't mention that the water footprint of viscose/rayon is based on the assumption that the water used in production is released into waterways and diluted to safe levels of toxicity.  That's not what really happens.  No one has uses that much water to dilute the effluent.  Many producers just release it into waterways and let downstream users deal with the pollution.  That happens often in countries with little oversight and laws.

More responsible manufacturers recycle the chemicals and water (with high-tech equipment and applying lots of energy) in a closed loop process.  Manufacturers that use closed loop processes label sell their products under the Lyocell, Tencel or Ecovero labels.  Ambiance Bemberg rayon also uses a closed loop process.  Please support these manufacturers as I do.  They cost a little more for the consumer because they are not foisting the environmental costs to others.

Marenzi also said that 80% of organic cotton grown today is rain-fed.  This is a positive development, but it's too late for the Aral Sea region or the Murray Darling River.

The Aral Sea in 2000 on the left and 2014 on the right. Photograph: Atlas Photo Archive/NASA

She also said that organic cotton is a cash crop grown in rotation with food crops by subsistence farmers in many parts of the world.  I wish the higher yields and lower water requirements of GMO cleaner cotton were available to the subsistence farmers.  This could happen if we made GMO seeds less costly and if we as consumers were willing to pay more for cleaner cotton.  (Farmers in poor countries are only being paid more for organic cotton but we can change that.)

I'm encouraged that the Gates Foundation is investing in GMO research so that farmers in poor countries will be able to take advantage of GMO's advantages without having to pay exorbitant and unfair Monsanto prices.

Anyway, I thought the podcast was a long slog and made some good points but it was a poor investment of my time.  For most people, reading is the fastest way to ingest information.

Thank-you for reading and I hope I didn't take up 36 minutes of your life.

Pajama-a-Palooza

Has it already been 3 years since Nightgown-a-Palooza*? The teen has since declared that she is over nightgowns and wants pajamas.  When we were in Joann's, she fell in love with this Star Wars themed Porg flannel.  We both find porgs adorable so we purchased 2.5 yards, just as the pattern recommended.

Flannel shrinks more than other 100% cotton fabrics due to its loose weave.  I was courting danger by not buying extra to compensate.  Sure enough, the legs of the pajama pants are just a bit short and I added knit cuffs to extend the length and keep out drafts.

Butterick 4483 and porg flannel

I'm going to spare you the sight of the droopy crotch of the PJ pants in OOP Butterick 4483.  It looks indecisive.  Are they MC Hammer pants?  I put them in the out box, but then pulled them out.  I might make the PJ top at a later date.

In looking at the oddly shaped scraps after cutting out the pants, I wondered if I could piece them together into two pieces large enough to cut the torso of a loose T-top like Kwik Sew 3262.  I could.

When people see that I sew with old clothing, they give me bags of old clothing.  (My mother once gave me a bin of 26 T-shirts.)  A mom cleaning out her adult sons' rooms found half a dozen T-shirts for their old baseball league.  They had some rips or stains, but I was able to cut sleeves around the flaws.

I added the same rib knit I used in the PJ pants, purchased at SAS Fabrics in Hawthorne.

Roomy top 

In one item, I used:

• post-consumer waste (T-shirt, porg scraps)
• pre-consumer waste (knit ribbing with a few flaws purchased by the pound at an odd-jobber)

It's like I made something out of trash.  Oh, I did.

The complete set also contains new fabric specifically milled for the home sewing market so it spans the whole gamut of material options.  Sewing with old clothes can be disappointing if the worn fabric wears out too quickly. By mixing old and new materials, I can make something that lasts, but minimize the amount of new stuff we consume.  (It's even better if my new material is a flawed mill waste (rib knit) or overstock/deadstock fabric.)

We are consuming several planets worth of stuff.  It is definitely not sustainable or equitable. 

DD wears her clothes for years, until they fall apart.  I sew her sturdy clothes with a mix of new and used materials.  If we all did this, maybe the planet won't burn up.

Anyway, she loved the porg pajama set so much, it was difficult to get it off of her to do laundry.  I had a light purple pair of knit PJ pants that I wasn't wearing.  I wanted to make another flannel top to go with it.

After making a bunch of flannel bathrobes for everyone in my family, I had used up all my flannel.  I stopped by SAS Fabrics and found this overstock/deadstock fabric. The top pattern suggests 2 yards of 60" wide knit fabric.  I though that I could squeak by with 1 yard of 44" wide flannel if I pieced the back and mixed the crosswise and lengthwise grain.  (I preshrank the fabric in a hot wash and dry cycle to reduce puckering from differential shrinkage.)  There was even enough left over to make a pocket for her cell phone or cold hands.

Second sleep set with new top and my underutilized knit pants made years ago.

She liked the pocket so much, she asked me to retrofit the first set with pockets. There were no porg flannel scraps left. I cut up one T-shirt sleeve and then re-seamed it so that the hems fall along the side openings and then topstitched it on the top. It looks really cool.

Improved first set with pocket

* In reading Nightgown-a-Palooza, I realized that there is was one more nightgown that I failed to blog.  I rather like the way that I made do with short yardage for that one so I will post it shortly.

Cleaner Cotton

We embrace technology when it comes to our sewing machines and rotary cutters.  Let's embrace technology that brings us cleaner cotton.

Transgenic crops contain genes inserted from another organism with desirable traits.  For instance, Bt cotton and corn contain genes from Bacillus thuringiensis, a bacteria that commonly lives in soil. Cotton engineered with Bt can produce a protein that is toxic to the cotton boll weevil, which means that farmers don't have to spray fields with pesticides that target the boll weevil.  It also means that land and water don't have to be used to grow the biologically-derived pesticides that organic farmers rely on.

In the US, Monsanto sells versions of Bt cotton with and without resistance to RoundUp, a herbicide.  There are valid reasons to be suspicious of heavy reliance on RoundUp that are treated elsewhere.  Monsanto seeds are not cheap and may not be affordable for low-income countries.  However, Brazilian scientists have independently developed a Bt cotton, and I hope that will drive down seed prices.

Bt cotton is not a panacea as cotton is susceptible to pests besides the boll weevil.  However, farmers in both India and the US report a 75% or greater reduction in pesticide use.

Cotton is a thirsty crop.  When I started following GMO cotton news around 2005, GMO cotton used 30% less cotton than organic cotton.  That number is now 50% less.  Not only can GMO cotton be grown with less water, it can be grown with saltier water that is not suitable for other crops.  Water scarcity is the the largest problem for many farmers (intricately tied to climate change) so I look askance at anyone who markets organic cotton as the environmental choice.

I was heartened to read about Cleaner Cotton™ and Sustainable Cotton movements.  Farmers are growing GMO cotton and using integrated pest management and crop rotation to reduce the use of fertilizer and pesticides/herbicides.  It's not organic.  It's better than organic.

The cost to grow organic cotton in California is higher than brands are willing to pay. In organic trials that SCP farmers have run, organic cotton fields yielded as much as 30% less fiber than conventional. Cleaner Cotton™, on average, yields more than 1,250 pounds of cotton per acre compared to average yields of 925 pounds in organic production. Lacking a secure market, farmers are unwilling to risk the lower yields and corresponding decrease in financial return.

quince & co. introduced their Cleaner Cotton™yarn, Willet, in 2015.  It's a start, but it contained some infuriating misinformation.  I'm not referring to the lack of credit given to genetic engineering.

quince & co. Willet Cleaner Cotton

"California is home to the finest cotton growing land in the country" is a lie.  The SJV is a desert; that's why the land was cheap and did not already have boll weevils plaguing the areas that had previously grown cotton.  During WWII, the military needed cotton for uniforms and lacked manpower to deal with pests in the southeast, which did have the water to support cotton.

Pretty cotton field in the desert of SJV shown on quince & co website

Cotton was planted in the SJV and irrigated with spring runoff from the mountains supplemented by fossil water in ancient aquifers.  Those aquifers are now so depleted, that the land has sunk 70-100 feet in 60 years of agriculture! It's time to retire the land and let the desert reclaim most of the southern SJV.

Cotton uses more water in CA than almonds despite smaller acreage

quince & co. also touted the family farm* that grows their cotton, Mari and Gary Martin of Pikalok farms.  They sound like lovely people, very concerned with modern farming and good land stewardship.  But there is no getting around the fact that their farm is in Mendota, a desert climate with only 9 inches of annual rainfall on average and as hot as a blast furnace in the summer.

Moreover, even at $8.50 per 50g skein, the Martins still rely on crop subsidies from the government.  Pikalok Farms received $4,214,481 in Total USDA Subsidies 1995-2017.  That's not including the water subsidies they receive from California.  They are small potatoes.  They received less than 1% of the cotton subsidies in their county over the same time period.

Just in case I've been unclear.  We should not grow cotton in the deserts of California ($3.3 B in USDA crop subsidies) or Arizona ($1.2 B).  Those industries were fed by war-time desperation for cotton and absence of boll weevils in the southwest.  Boll weevils are now endemic in the southwest as well, so there is no reason not to move cotton production back into the southeast.

Pests can be reduced by crop rotation.  GMO cotton, with lower water requirements, can be grown over a greater geographical range.  This also helps pest management.

Room&Board is now selling bedding made from cotton grown on a rain-irrigated farm.  The cotton is grown in Alabama, woven in South Carolina and sewn in Minnesota.

[Red Land Cotton] plant cover crops to reduce erosion and runoff, practice crop rotation and graze cattle on their land. All of this allows them to grow cotton without artificial irrigation—an exception to the norm among cotton farmers.

Sunset at Red Land Cotton

Sewing the bedding in MN

Gorgeous bedding

Even at $270 for a duvet, Red Land Farms still took $4,921,061 in USDA crop subsidies 1995-2017.

Farming is a tough and heartbreaking business and I think that some level of non-market support is needed.  However, we should be able to have rational debates about how much is appropriate and the best way to spend our collective money and effort.

When we talk about sustainable sewing, be prepared to pay more and to take a more nuanced approach to what constitutes "good" and "bad" production.

Since I've started tracking how much I buy and use, I've been buying 2-3x as much as I sew.  So it's time for me to use what I have and to recycle textiles when appropriate.  I'll still buy small amounts of new stuff to help create a market for responsible producers/sellers, but I will need to consume less.

*All farmers belong to a family.  Some families have small farms, some have huge farms.  There is nothing inherently wonderful about small farms, though they tend to be less efficient than large ones.

Sustainable Organic Pesticides

Neem tree picture from Wikipedia

Organic cotton relies on plant-derived insecticides such as Neem oil.  The veggies from my CSA box also rely on Neem oil.  Farmer Glenn Tanaka of Tanaka Farms told subscribers that Neem oil needs to be applied before insects get a toe hold because it's really a pest repellent rather than a pest killer.  That means he spends a lot of money and time buying and spraying Neem oil.

Neem oil is relatively safe and breaks down quickly according to fact sheets from both the Missouri Botanic Garden and Oregon State University. (STEAM is a family business.  ;-)  One of my uncles got his PhD in Botany at MBG/Washington U.)

According to Neem Oil and Crop Protection: From Now to the Future, Neem oil has over 100 different biologically-active compounds, but one ingredient, azadirachtin, is responsible for ~90% of the action. Synthetic azadirachtin, made in a lab, is just as effective asazadirachtin from Neem tree oil.  But, if farmers use synthetic azadirachtin, they lose the organic designation and the higher prices that their cotton would obtain at market.

Additionally, Neem trees are being harvested unsustainably in the wild to meet the exploding demand.  This is so alarming that scientists at Kew gardens are trying to help organic cotton farmers in Mali learn to use Neem oil more optimally and to switch to farmed Neem trees rather than make them extinct in the wild.

It also takes water and land to grow Neem trees to obtain their oil.  Perhaps farmers have more pressing uses for their land, water and time, e.g. growing food.    This is so wrong and deeply troubling to me.

Another thing that troubles me is the extra labor required to grow organic products.  As I've written before in Embedded water: cotton, growing cotton organically requires more labor.  How do you increase labor without cutting into profits?  By using slave labor.  Children were sold into slavery to meet the west's appetite for organic cotton at prices we are willing to pay.

Much of the child labor is to haul water.  What if farmers had access to GMO cotton seeds that require half the water at a price they could afford?  Would you pay extra for that?  I would.  How would we label and certify products that are grown sustainably and equitably, but not organically?

This is just about stuff happening in west Africa.  India and west Africa are the two major sources of organic cotton.  I knew about the problems with organic cotton in California and west Texas, but, the more I researched what was happening in other parts of the world, the more alarmed I became.  It has definitely made me rethink my assumptions and consumption habits.

This is a complex issue and cognitive shortcuts like organic=good isn't the best way to go about it.  I'm thinking about inequality and climate change every day, sometimes several times a day.  What about you?  Do you talk about it with your friends and family?  Is it considered impolite?

Sew Inspirational

Sew Becky Jo asked me to write up a post about five sewists that inspire me for the Sewcialists blog and I am happy to oblige.

I had to step back to think a little bit about what that means, or how I want to interpret this assignment. I'm exhausted from all the bad news lately, and have been reflecting deeply about how I can respond--push to make the world more in keeping with my values, while protecting my emotional core. Depending on how you see it, I am either a procrastinator or a researcher.

Several of the books I read in the last year dealt with how social media and technology is harnessed by authoritarians and liars for their own ends. Thus, I decided to focus on five sewists that are less active and "hot" (in the sense of popularity), but resonate with me. I'll also explain why.

Have you ever heard about the Weak Ties Theory? Changing Minds has a good synopsis. In short, social ties are either strong (between tight clusters of members connected mainly with others in the same group) or weak (bridges between strong networks.) 

The more weak ties we have, the more connected to the world we are and are more likely to receive important information about ideas, threats and opportunities in time to respond to them.

Strong ties are the echo/bubble chambers in which misinformation can ricochet without challenge.

Weak ties are the ways in which we expand our understanding about how others experience the world.

(If this interests you, read an academic paper by Mark Granovetter,  who first explained and gave a name to this effect.)

Sewing is a great way to add weak ties to your social media. We are all makers who encounter and solve similar problems. We can learn about sewing *and* about the greater world by following people who experience much different lived experiences than our own. In doing so, we can learn to empathize with people who don't look like us.

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Blogger 1.

If I want to direct attention to less-known sewing bloggers, why am I starting my list with super-popular Carolyn of Diary of a Sewing Fanatic?  She's a super-star among bloggers for good reason.  She's been putting out quality content about her sewing journey since 2006, when the sewing blogger world was much smaller.  She's so generous with her time--showing what worked, what didn't, and analyzing why.

I've learned so much non-sewing information from her, too.

Through Carolyn, I've learned how challenging it is for plus-sized women to find professional and on-trend clothing, how much it means for African Americans that one of them was our president, and how personal BLM is when a mother has to send her son or grandson out in the world when so many see them only as a threat.

I read Carolyn to be a better sewist and a better person.

IG: @diaryofasewingfanatic

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I'm intrigued by what sewists call Pattern Puzzles, novel ways to cut and shape garments.  Issey Miyake designs often fall in this category. So do the garments in the Pattern Magic series of books by Tomoko Nakamichi.

I follow many sewists that sew Pattern Puzzles and document their experiences to help others.  Some are less active on social media than they were in the past, but quality content is evergreen.

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Blogger 2.

I first learned about Pattern Puzzles from Kathleen Fasanella of Fashion Incubator. She's blogged about Pattern Puzzles no fewer than 251 times!

Kathleen is less active in her open access blog than in the past. She runs a (paid) member forum for clothing manufacturers working in the US. I am not a member of that forum, but I hear it is a friendly and nurturing site full of people helping each other.

I have her book and it is an encyclopedia in one volume. Sometimes, I have to read it over several times because she can pack so much information in one paragraph and a few illustrations. Browse through her tutorials and use them. Your sewing will be so much better.

In 2015, she bought a factory--or rather, she built one in Albuquerque, New Mexico. You can follow her and her partners on IG @abqfi.

Another reason to follow Kathleen is to learn more about neurodiversity. She writes very movingly about how many of her life experiences made sense once she learned she is on the autism spectrum. The apparel manufacturing industry has traditionally been home to immigrants and people who think differently. This is it's strength.

 Like many people who are on the spectrum, Kathleen is a slayer of bullshit.

She compiled all her wisdom about The Myth of Vanity Sizing in one place. FYI, I went into this thinking vanity sizing is a thing. She completely convinced me I was wrong. Now I am smug because I know the right answer and there is no one more evangelical than the converted. ;-)

IG: @kathleenfasanella @abqfi

Blogger 3.

Lauriana of Petit Main Sauvage has sewn many pattern puzzles, though her recent makes lean more towards activewear. She works in a wedding dress salon and is generous with her knowledge.

I also enjoy her slice of life writing and photos of rock climbing, bicycle commuting and life in general in the Netherlands.  Plus, her organized, utilitarian and beautiful apartment (in the background of many of her photos) is a life goal.

If you like pattern pieces shaped like this, then this is a blog to read.  Start at the beginning and slowly work your way forwards in time.  I don't know if she is in IG.

Is this a bat or a sleeve?  Read and learn.

Blogger 3.5

Di of Clementine's Shoes took down all of her blog posts, so you can't see any of her Pattern Magic sewing experiments.  Some of the experiments worked.  Some failed.  They were real experiments.  It was inspirational just to watch someone who was up to try anything.

 I'm quite sad that she didn't leave her old posts up when she quit blogging.

Recently, she started posting on IG as @clementinesews. She also posts her work as an architect @dijonesarch. I hope she re-posts her old blog content, because it was really, really good. Oh, she knits and makes shoes, too.

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The last two deal with disability or caring for the disabled along with sewing.

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Blogger 4.

Many sewing bloggers order interfacing and other notions from Pam Erny of Fashion Sewing Supply. She is now my sole supplier of interfacing. No more bubbling from shrunken fusible interfacing!

Did you know that she also posts many helpful tutorials on her Off The Cuff Shirtmaking blog?

She doesn't write much about her personal life, but she's inspirational in that she is another math/physics person who created a second career for herself and her husband.

Don't you want to learn how to sew a placket like this?

Blogger 5.

Ms. Little Hunting Creek and I were frequent commenters on each others' blogs when we were both much more active bloggers.  We bonded over the fact that we both had the same Home Ec lesson in the 1970s in California.  We both earned BAs from UC Berkeley (Cal)--she in Classics, me in Mathematics.  We also both earned our livings in software despite not formally studying computer science in school.  Hey, if you can learn ancient Latin and Greek grammar, modern software languages are a piece of cake.

Berkeley's breadth with depth requirements for BAs meant that she had to take quite a few science classes (enough to earn a minor in Biology) and I had to take quite a few history classes.  This is probably the reason why Cal grads did not go on to found and run the tech companies that took down democracy around the world.

I suggest you read Sewing as Political Protest.

Her blogging slowed down due to health challenges that you can go over there to read about.  I find it inspirational that she could continue to work (but from home) and carve some time out to make stuff and blog about it.  Oh, she also wrote essays for the Toast.

From Wearing the Pants: A Brief Western History of Pants

According to Herodotus, when Greek soldiers met the Scythians in battle, they were amazed to see Scythian women on horseback fighting alongside the men, all wearing pants and decorated armor. When they went back to Greece they immortalized those Scythian women for posterity as the legendary Amazons in their poetry and art. Painting them looking both chic and fierce, their pictures of the Amazons are some of the earliest Western artworks showing women in pants. But even though pants came to the West from the Scythians and others (along with riding horses), in the West, wearing pants was associated with warfare and restricted to men only. Perhaps, remembering those Amazons, men feared what might happen to them if women were able to wear pants and get their hands on some weapons.

This is why I overcame my initial resistance to arming school teachers. If we armed the (mostly female) school teachers, perhaps they will enjoy the same high pay and cushy pensions as policemen. Amirite?

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Each of these five bloggers have taught me things and even changed my mind by giving me new information or reframing it.  Let's keep on learning and making together.

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Shirtdress shortcut

The black and white shirtdress was so successful, I decided to make another one. Time has been short this summer, so I started with a men's shirt from Goodwill and went searching through my supplies for the perfect match for the skirt portion.

I knew that I wanted to use the skirt from Vogue 1916 again. This time, I made the pockets 1" wider and 1.5" deeper to securely hold my cell phone.

I auditioned many skirt fabrics.  This was my second choice.  I had 4.5 yards of my first choice and decided to save it to a dress at a later time.  I was worried that this light-medium denim was too heavy and stiff for this style.

I needn't have worried.  The denim is soft and drapey.  In fact, it was so soft that the waistline stretched out and I had to insert back darts to draw it in.

The denim was purchased cheaply by the pound near LA because it has some minor flaws and fading. I buy most of my fabric (by yardage but not by $) from odd jobbers like that, and cut around flaws. This time, there was no avoiding all the flaws, but they are relatively minor. Also, denim is supposed to develop a patina and this has a head start.

I also used one of my husband's shirts that had been retired after a sad encounter with soy sauce.  The contrast kick pleat flashes nicely when the skirt moves.

The piece left over after I cut the kick pleat insert had a pleasing curved hem.  I rotated it a quarter turn to make a wonky second shirt pocket.  I added the buttonhole, but decided to omit the button in the end.

I used the sleeves of the shirt to line the skirt pockets.  If you look carefully, you can see some stains from droplets of soy sauce.

It's not easy to refashion a dress shirt from long to short sleeves due to the sleeves' taper.  I cut some bias bands to hem the sleeves so that they lay evenly.  I wish I made the bands twice as wide for more visual oomph.  Next time.

I measured the black/white dress bodice length and then added a smidgen when trimming the thrifted shirt. I shouldn't have added the length. It looked so sad. After a date with my seam ripper on Saturday night, I put in two back waist skirt darts, readjusted the shirt pleats, and reattached the two parts. It looks and feels great now.

This is a water post because of the embedded water I reclaimed by using all second hand or irregular fabrics that might have gone to waste.

Read more about the reclaiming the energy/water/value of textiles:

• Embedded water: cotton
• Grandma Sewing
• My planetary t-shirt