ARVADA, Colo. — As the army of mask makers grows, an Arvada veteran and his wife have joined the cause ... but first, Giselle Williams had to learn how to sew on a machine almost 100 years old.
"We don't sew," her husband Darin Williams said. "We didn't think we had a sewing machine. And I got to poking around in our guest bedroom and we had a piece of nice antique furniture in there."
That antique turned out to be Giselle's great great grandmother Addie Harrison's 1922 Singer Treadle Sewing Machine.
The family heirloom just needed a new belt, some lubrication, and a good cleaning.
"It operates just like we purchased it yesterday," he said.
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Luckily, Darin's grandmother had taught him to sew when he was young, so he taught Giselle, and she was off on a mask making mission the old fashioned way.
Already a knitter and yarn spinner, she caught on fast.
"Just the sound of it is very soothing," she said. "It's just really special."
Giselle styles hair at weddings, and so she's lost almost all of her work during the pandemic. She has an Etsy shop where she sells things she knits, but sewing masks is all new.
“We’ve gotten really busy really fast with one very simple antique sewing machine," Darin said. "And that’s what we’ve been doing."
Giselle has made more than 100 masks and donated many of them to healthcare workers who requested them. Others are being sold at the cost of the supplies.
As word gets out, the requests for more masks keep coming in, and they started a Facebook Fundraiser to pay for fabric and other supplies.
People can purchase a mask for $5 on Giselle's Etsy shop here.
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