Stuck At Home Due To Coronavirus, Herndon Woman Turns Mask Maker

HERNDON, VA — When the coronavirus pandemic hit, Sally Westphal found herself out of two jobs, one at a bookstore and the other at the Elden Street Tea Shop in Herndon.

"I got furloughed from one job, and the other job I elected to stay home from because I have asthma and it's not a great thing to be out in retail," she said.

Stuck at home, Westphal turned to sewing face masks as a way to fill her time. To date, she's made more than 600.

"For the first bit, my dad actually worked with a medical group out in Iowa, and they were looking for masks — specifically the Olson masks, because they can be worked up to rate N-95 with a proper filter and seal. They were looking for those for his work, and I made a few just to get started."

Soon, family members and friends began requesting that she make masks for them, too.

"It just sort of spiraled from there, because we started making masks and I have a couple of friends who help on parts of this as well," Westphal said. "Every time we start to run out of materials, we either get donations or just straight-up more materials donated to us."

Although Westphal and her friends have produced hundreds of masks to date, the mask-making process is actually very informal.

"We haven't sat down and done like a huge mass of masks," she said. "It's, 'Here's another pile. Let's make some more.' Every time we make them, we end up finding people to give them to."

Westphal has provided masks for her neighbors, her husband's co-workers, her father-in-law's co-workers, and even Fairfax County when they had some leftover.

"We're actually starting another batch right now," Westphal said. "We got another pile of fabric donated, so we're just starting to cut into it."

Westphal has a degree in fashion and used to work in the theater, so those skills come in handy when it comes to making masks and being creative. It takes about two to three weeks to complete a batch of about 80 to 100 masks.

"I still do the bulk of the sewing, mostly because I have the experience and the machine," she said. "Jeanette is the one who likes to help me turn things inside out, and Mariah is the one who likes to do the cutting and tying of the elastic."

Recently, Westphal donated about 40 masks to the Elden Street Tea Shop, where she'll continue dropping off extra masks. The tea shop is accepting either cash or materials in return for the masks.

"Everything we're doing is 100 percent cotton," she said. "We don't really accept donations of anything else, because the cotton ones can go through a sanitizer and nothing else can."

As long as Westphal keeps receiving donations of new material, she'll continue making masks.

"It just feels like a way I can help out and be useful while being stuck at home," she said.

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