Ann Foye makes a mask while her cat Thumper takes a nap in Foye’s home in Auburn on Monday. Daryn Slover/Sun Journal Buy this Photo
Anne Foye’s son no longer hears the whirl of her sewing machine at 4 a.m.
“There is a lot of need for volunteering,” Ann Foye said about the time in which we live, amongst a global pandemic. Daryn Slover/Sun Journal Buy this Photo
Her dogs Sweety, Phoebe and Cortez do. So do her cats Thumper and Sleepy.
With three dogs on the nearby couch and two cats at her nose, Foye starts to sew face masks every morning before the sun rises.
Foye guesses she has made 1,000 masks since the start of the coronavirus pandemic in Maine.
She donated many to health care workers and nursing homes.
“There is a lot of need for volunteering,” Foye said.
The rest are sold at $2 each to help adsorb the cost of materials.
“Everybody is like mask, mask, mask,” Foye said. “I’m out, I’m out, I’m out. I can’t sew any faster” to meet the demand.
“I am busier than a one-armed paper hanger,” she said.
Sewing since age 9 has helped her prepare. Before the pandemic, Foye was known for the fleece baby booties she made to sell at craft fairs. She’s switched her product lines now to meet the needs of the community and beyond.
“I don’t know how much fabric I have gone through,” she said. “People that sew are hoarders,” the 67-year-old snitched.
One thing Foye was not able to hoard enough of is elastic to attach masks to ears.
“Elastic is very hard to come by and the price of elastic has gone way up,” Foye said. Marden’s, where many sewers buy materials at a significant discount, is closed because of the virus.
Ann Foye guesses that she has made 1,000 masks. “I am busier than a one-armed paper hanger,” said Foye. Daryn Slover/Sun Journal Buy this Photo
Foye thinks she may have found a way to encourage more men to wear masks.
“Black and sports team’s logos,” she said. “They are not going to wear anything girly.”
As for women, fireflies and sunflowers have been popular patterns.
“I don’t see a stop to this. They are saying that there is no end in sight,” said Foye.
Foye said she knows of many other sewers making masks. “It’s an effort that everyone is chimed into. It’s like a community,” she said. “People are just trying to be safe. That makes me happy.”
And Foye’s son is happy he can sleep past 4 a.m.
“Can you hear the machine?” Foye asked him.
“Not anymore,” he said.
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