Making Masks

Putting my embroidery and stitching skills to some use I decided to make some face masks. I used the embroidery I had been working on for some time to make the first mask as I had no clue what I was going to do with the embroidery once it was done (Fig. 1).

After my first mask was successful, I had enough material to make a second one. I wanted to try stitch a flower, but I wasn't sure which flower at first. I eventually decided to stitch Forget-Me-Not flowers (Anchusa capensis) which are five-petaled blue flowers with yellow centres. They are indigenous to South Africa. I was given a packet of Forget-me-not seeds with my dog's ashes at the beginning of the lockdown. I haven't planted the seeds yet and I don't know if I will.

I started stitching with a dark blue thread as it was the only thread, I had at the time but when my local haberdashery opened I managed to get a blue thread closer to the colour of the flowers. I used yellow beads for the middle of the flowers which added another texture. The beads also catch the light drawing attention to the flowers so they don't get lost on the blue background.

I want to make a few more masks with some embroidery but I want to try sewing them up with the sewing machine as the embroidery takes time and stitching by hand makes the process a lot longer.

Figure 1 - Bowes, K ., (2020). abstract embroidery mask.

Figure 2 - Bowes, K., (2020). Forget-me-not embroidery mask.