Next Phase: Monochrome

 

Starting today, FFTP2-grade masks are obligatory in Austria in shops and pharmacies, on public transport and other public places. This means that the countless masks I sewed (most of them pictured above) will have to go into hibernation for the time being. I remember when I first started "mass production" last spring and gave the first few away, some people thanked me but thought they would only need them in the coming weeks. Well...All in all, I must have sewed dozens of masks until then and I truly loved this quick and gratifying sewing project. Mine are all 2-ply and I always used some type of tightly-woven fabric so I am pretty confident they were semi-decent in terms of protection. I once saw a guy on a tram in Vienna who wore the thinnest, flimsiest excuse of a mask, made of a gauze-type material and he could just as well have worn nothing. Given this type of people, I totally support our Government's decision and I also don't mind wearing FFP2 masks from a comfort point of view but it will definitely make interacting with people even more boring and dystopian-looking than it is already. Everyone walking around wearing the same kind of (mostly white) masks. Ah, well. 

While I never thought that masks would disappear in 2020, I actually did not anticipate that my birthday (later this week) this year would fall in a lockdown. I pitied all my friends whose birthdays took place last spring during lockdown one and tried to make Highflyer's all the more special. In hindsight, the fact that the Empress was able to celebrate her 40th with a large group of people last summer is almost a miracle as I remember wishing almost everyone whose birthday fell between Mid March 2020 and now a happy birthday "despite it all", i.e. the fact that they couldn't celebrate properly.