Cotton fabric can be turned into masks for medical professionals to use to cover their surgical masks. Patty Tomasetti is collecting homemade masks for Wilton Meadows.
Contributed photoWILTON — During the coronavirus pandemic, there are people in the Wilton community who want nothing more than to help others.
Patty Tomasetti, an interior designer with Tomasetti Architects in Wilton, is one such person.
Although Tomasetti doesn’t sew, she is recruiting people who do in order to make 220 masks for staff members at the Wilton Meadows rehabilitation and nursing center in Wilton.
At this time, personal protective equipment, such as surgical masks, are in limited supply, so the fabric masks Tomasetti is collecting are designed to fit over surgical masks, allowing them to be used more than once to extend their useful life.
Tomasetti said she was asked by her friend, Robynne Quinn, a social worker at Wilton Meadows, if she would be willing to help collect homemade masks because the facility was running low on surgical masks.
“We are trying to do whatever we can, but we can’t do much. What can we do? I have a lot of connections in the Wilton community, so I figured I could do this,” she said.
A friend of Tomasetti’s, who is down in Florida, recently shipped her 20 masks.
Tomasetti has collected 42 masks but is far short of her 220 goal and is reaching out to the community for help.
“I have a pattern for the masks, so people can see how they are made. I have some fabric, but it’s limited. It would help if people had their own fabric,” she said.
The best fabric to use for the masks is tightly woven, 100-percent cotton from things like denim, bed sheets, and heavyweight shirts. Knit fabrics are not good because they create holes when they are stretched.
Tomasetti is collecting the homemade masks in a bin in front of the office, Tomasetti Architects, 27 Cricket Lane, which is across from Wilton Town Hall.
If she exceeds the 220 masks that Wilton Meadows needs, she will distribute the others to Norwalk Hospital or another medical facility that can use them.
She said she will gladly pick up masks from seniors who cannot leave their homes.
To get the basic guideline and design to make the mask, email Patty Tomasetti at patty@tomasetti.com, or call her at 203-216-6768.
Editor’s Note: The email address in this story has been corrected.
pgay@wiltonbulletin.com