She started off threading together miniature stuffed animals she dubbed “yarn critters,” with aspirations to knit baby clothes.
But just as psychology senior Elizabeth Craig contemplated selling them, the COVID-19 pandemic forced a change in all aspects of her world, especially arts and crafts.
“I was like, ‘This isn’t going to really sell and during this time no one’s really concerned about having a cute little figurine,’ ” she said. “I changed gears and said, ‘Before I start that, let me do something that’s more needed right now.’ ”
Craig said she noticed face masks becoming increasingly popular on Etsy, an online marketplace for creators and buyers of handmade crafts and jewelry.
“I’m a huge fan of Etsy,” she said. “I’m always getting shit on Etsy that I don’t really need and I saw that people were making masks and I was, like, ‘Oh I can do that too.’ ”
So she went to the local JOANN Fabric and Craft store and bought a sewing machine.
At what Craig described as “price-gouging” rates, she bought cloth and elastic online to craft her custom face masks.
Her grandmother, who she calls “abuelita,” was even more valuable in her journey than her sewing machine, she said.
“I didn’t even know what a needle was until, like, a month ago to be honest,” she said. “I talked to my grandma and said, ‘Hey grandma, would you be able to show me how to use a sewing machine?’ ”
Spending so much time with her abuelita also meant having to take more precautions to protect her health, Craig said, so she took a leave of absence from her job working with children on the autism spectrum. She said she had to find a new source of income.
“[My abuelita’s] immunocompromised,” she said. “She has cancer, so for me the benefits of going to work do not outweigh the risks.”
Craig sold her first three homemade face masks within a day of posting them for $14 each on Etsy.
Without hesitation she got to work on her next set of custom face masks. Her number one cheerleader, Craig’s mother bears witness to the long hours Craig spends on the sewing process. “So my mom is very ‘chismosa,’ ” Craig said, describing her mother using the Spanish term for gossiper. “She was, like, telling family friends, like, ‘Oh, my daughter’s doing this.’ ”
One of those family friends was Clementina Hoffman, who owns the Larson Packaging Company in Milpitas with her husband.
Hoffman said she saw Craig’s post on Facebook while looking to purchase face masks for her dozens of employees working in the company’s factory which is not equipped with personal protective equipment.
“Right when I saw the post on Facebook that she was doing that, we had one of our employees complain of a sore throat and a mild fever . . . Obviously, we sent him home,” Hoffman said. “We have families who are working for us. So when one is considered a risk, we send the whole family home.”
Hoffman got in contact with Craig who agreed to dedicate an entire weekend to crafting masks for Hoffman’s employees.
“I told her I’ll deliver a little bit every day, so I was dropping off, like, 15 a day,” she said. “I still had people buying or requesting [on Etsy], so I said, ‘Give me a week and I will get back to you guys.’ ”
Craig created 50 masks for the employees over four days using elastic, copper and cloth, some of which was provided by Hoffman’s company.
Hoffman said that Craig provided a life-saving service so that workers wouldn’t have to call in sick for fear of contracting
COVID-19.
“Right before I saw the post on Facebook, I spent probably an hour and a half online trying to find reusable masks and the delivery time for anything on Etsy was delivered by the end of this month,” she said. “[Craig] saved the day.”
Even after helping a company in need and collecting some extra income for herself, Craig said she won’t be burnt out from crafting face masks any time soon.
“I’ve been getting faster and faster because I’ve been trying to see ways to make it go faster because time is money, right?”
she said. “I just felt like this was a good way to make it all kind of come together and it’s worked so far.”
