Agnostic.com

22 12

By asking to be paid for materials, did I violate an unspoken rule?

So far, I have made masks for 15 friends and family. It feels good to give them for free out of the goodness of my heart.

It used up my spare material, interfacing and bias tape. Each mask takes a pack of bias tape for ties. With so many people making masks for medical staff, bias tape and interfacing are sold out at the only fabric store in town.

"Whatever you are doing is working," a nurse said yesterday. She called to say my COVID-19 test result was negative. "Keep it up."

Before sewing, I pre-wash the cotton fabric and dry it in a hot dryer. This makes the masks washable and reusable. It takes 2.5 hours to sew each mask, a pain in the neck to make. One maddening detail:

I carefully zig-zag over florist wire, trying to force it to lie straight. This goes inside wider bias tape. The padded wire shapes over the nose to eliminate air gaps.

It's expensive ($25/yard) to buy high-quality cotton with a high thread count. Flimsy cotton is too porous. Iron-on interfacing between two layers of fabric also blocks the virus.

A friend for whom I made a mask asked me to make masks for the six-man crew of her husband's painting company. "I can pay you $20 per mask, $110 total," she said.

"I'll need you to pay for materials, too," I replied. "It's $5.95 per mask for bias tape for ties. A yard of fabric is $15 to $25/yard, plus tax. I'll need to buy interfacing, too."

Suddenly the painting crew didn't need masks, after all.

What's up with that?

LiterateHiker 9 May 1
Share

Enjoy being online again!

Welcome to the community of good people who base their values on evidence and appreciate civil discourse - the social network you will enjoy.

Create your free account

22 comments

Feel free to reply to any comment by clicking the "Reply" button.

8

sounds like lack of respect for your time and effort. not a great friend..sounds like more of an acquaintance. You have a right to require payment for your worth. She has an option to buy online if she can find any. She might think she is doing you a favor giving you money, but when a dollar amount gets attached to your efforts, it becomes more of a burden as opposed to enjoying an act of love and goodwill.

7

Tell her you reconsidered, and will trade the masks for them coming over and painting a few rooms of your house. While you sew, they paint, and when you're done they're done.

1of5 Level 8 May 1, 2020
7

I made masks out of hepa vacuum cleaner bags. They are N99

6

I've been making them for myself, as I work in a hospital. I have found that taking 3 christmas ornament hangers and twisting them together makes a serviceable nose piece. Just a suggestion for the mask makers. Stay safe, yall.

5

Well now I feel badly. I did not pay anywhere near that amount for the masks I ordered from friends.

4

Good for you for being up front about the costs you incur.

4

Can i order two hundred please. LOL

They were a pain in the ass to make. I used a hot glue gun, pipe cleaners to fit around the nose and had to sew elastic piping on the side to secure the ear loops. If I had to make 200 of them I'd kill myself

3

At the risk of putting a downer on things, if you charge someone for a mask, and it doesn't offer the protection hoped for, you would be making yourself susceptible to legal action. A little caution might be in order here.

JoeB Level 6 May 1, 2020

@JoeB

People are responsible for their own behavior. I made masks for the couple who live below me.

Ignoring the state rule not to gather, they host a dozen people from their church on Sundays in their living room. Nobody wears a mask.

If you sell something to somebody, then you can be held legally responsible for its perfornance. Commercial makers of PPE have insurance to cover themselves against any such problems, which you clearly don't, and you appear to be supplying somebody with whom you do not have a completely trust-based financial relationship. Hence my recomending caution.

@JoeB

Nonsense. People are responsible for their own behavior. I cannot force people to wear a mask correctly or wash it properly.

At local grocery stores, less than 10% of customers wear masks. Most are women. Apparently men think it's macho to go without a mask. Idiots.

@LiterateHiker No - he's suggesting if the mask isn't prevention enough - and remember this is not an N95 mask. ... someone could potentially turn around and try to sue you.
We do live in a libelous country.

And your neighbors already break the law to gather for religious ceremony's.
I wouldn't trust them one bit.
Yes it's good of you to provide them masks. But frankly you're protecting their friends more than them. (Basic Masks protect the folks around you more than even yourself).

Of course friends and family? Slightly different - but again if someone falls ill?
All bets may be off.

@RavenCT, @JoeB

Oh, for heaven's sake! Don't be paranoid. Nobody is going to sue me for giving them a homemade mask. People appreciate it.

I'm not responsible if someone get COVID-19. There are multiple ways to contract the virus, many still unknown:

  1. Lack of hand washing before eating.

  2. Touching your face with contaminated hands.

  3. Wearing a mask wrong by not covering your nose or mouth.

  4. Not wearing a mask around groups of people.

  5. Eating fruit or vegetables from a store without washing it first.

  6. Many people are asymptomatic. You could get it from a seemingly-healthy person.

The list goes on. It's impossible to pinpoint how you got the virus.

@LiterateHiker
As someone who deals in sales in an online store front I just might have more awareness of the public and what ridiculous things they come up with as to issues with products.
But okay. Believe what you like.

I have to say if you start charging $20 per mask that does seem overinflated.
As someone who went out and bought everything needed to sew them recently - I'm not sure why that's your cost?
Certainly it's your right to price your time as you see fit.

But folks can turn to online shopping for less. Here's an example from our Photography Group of photos being put onto masks: [fineartamerica.com] I thought that was pretty cool too. $14/each

3

Very good honey a wonderful woman here makes them for police and healthcare workers, she sent me some for working on Delaware reserve medical corp

@Bobwjr

Thank you.

2

You are doing great custom work. People have no idea how long it takes or the cost of doing any work at all. I sat down one day with several others at lunch and figured out that we should charge about one-hundred dollars for the first time we turn a saw on. This sounds a little much, but one has to think about the time it took to figure out what the customer wants, the quality they want, then one has to get the material and get it to the point where the saw can be turned on just to make the first cut. Then if something bad happens insurance has to be thought of. My mother used to make all my shirts, she would buy the material, cut out the parts, sew them together, you know the process better than I. She loved doing it and I told her many times that I appreciated her efforts and the money spent. I sat down with her once to figure out what she would have to charge to make one shirt and we cam up with about one-hundred dollars, She made them six at a time and it took a day. She said the most expensive part was the buttons, she put an ad in a sewing magazine and received about fifty pounds of buttons, some correctable. I know what it takes to do what you are doing, thanks from the bottom of my heart.

@dalefvictor

Thanks for your compliment.

People are responsible for their own behavior. I made masks for the couple who live below me.

Ignoring the state rule not to gather, they host a dozen people from their church on Sundays in their living room. Nobody wears a mask.

2

I would just give the total including the cost of material. If they don't want to pay it, then don't make them.

2

I have made 200+ masks so far. I decided on what the cost would be per mask and that factored in the cost of materials and labor. I wouldn’t have them itemized as separate costs. The only thing I have added is shipping if I sent them out of state.

It is easier for people to know one amount up front. It’s up to me to determine what that amount should be and up to them to determine if they want to pay it.

If someone wanted some specialty pattern that was more, I would consider special pricing for them and tell them so up front. That has come up as an issue, though. People just choose from what I have available.

2

Six times $20 isn't $110. She thought she offered you plenty. You didn't. That's business.

@Stephanie99

Correct. Six times $20 is $120.

2

It's not like you're charging for labor.

People suck, always wantin' somethin' for nothin'..

2

Just tell them you no longer have any material and have looked but can not fine any replacements.

2

That's what I'm wearing in my picture. "Mask made out of thin air." (If anyone asks.)

(Kidding! That pictures like 2 years old now? but the same amount of gray hair in the beard)

2

You may need to re-think referring to her as a "friend."

1

Yes, the unspoken rule is it should be free. By all means, charge for it, you are putting time and money in, you should at least get your material costs covered. Tell people how much it will cost, so there are no surprises.

1

Nothing wrong with asking for that,,I have had a lot of masks given to me ,i have asked for a couple here and there ,but i also have a list of seniors who require them so i have been remailing them out at no charge,i cover the postage my self and I am delievering a couple this afternoon,,But a lot of those people I have been getting masks from have been asking for donations of material from those who do not and probably would never use that material anyways ,so it has help create a lot of free masks and I salute those would give there free time doing the sewing,,must say every person i have received masks from no two have made them the same way,varity is the spice of life 🙂 Keep up your great work

1

IMHO asking for material costs is not outta bounds. What you might want for your labor and what you might get are 2 different amounts. THAT said, they are washable and reusable so they would save money over the disposable ones - if you can even find those.
I have no idea how many masks you can get out of a yard of fabric. But I know for me since I can not saw well it would make me a very fussy person. 🙂

1

Sounds like you have a cool process. Any pics of your masks?

Some things are just not worth our time. I’m a writer, and I’d hate writing for a friend or acquaintance ... it would eat up all my free time. I’d have to charge a ridiculous fee to even consider it. I’m sure then they wouldn’t need my services. LOL.

@Apunzelle

This morning, I posted a photo of me wearing a mask I made.

0

Yup theres a reason very few people sew any more. Thanks for the reminder about how much it actually costs.

It sounds like masks you make are much higher quaility than avg. Maybe in a year people will understand the difference, but right now youre trying to convince people that 3-ply TP is worth more than single ply, when no one sees anything but the letters, TP.

Write Comment
You can include a link to this post in your posts and comments by including the text q:491161
Agnostic does not evaluate or guarantee the accuracy of any content. Read full disclaimer.