Design Fail

One of the hardest things about being in quarantine is watching my little brother’s sadness and fear over a virus that he can not see or even understand. I miss hearing him laugh in the backyard with his best friend Will. My sister and I had an idea to cheer him up: why not make him a face mask with images of some of his favorite fictional characters? Going outside isn’t as scary when you have Cat-in-the-Hat with you, right? We went to work right away and ordered a lot of awesome Dr. Seuss fabric with dreams of delivering fun masks to other scared kids in the community. Well, we got the fabric and realized that it would be hard making what customers expect because the print was too large. No two masks would be the same, meaning you might think you are getting your favorite character on a mask, but you may end up getting one with Horton’s big butt, Cat-in-the-Hat from the neck down, etc. Chalk this one up to a great learning experience. Now we know to pay attention to a fabric’s repeat pattern measurement. As my mom would say, turn lemons to lemonade. We’ll be donating these masks to Community Heroes who work with children.

—Jack