Carreen Pierson loves to sew. The Hutchinson woman even went back to school for classes in sewing, pattern design and tailoring.
When her daughter-in-law, Katie Pierson, a physical therapist in Iowa, heard about women in China making masks, an idea developed. She asked her mother-in-law if she would make masks for the hospital she works at, which was running low on personal protective equipment. Carreen agreed to help.
“Everything happened so quickly that they weren’t quite prepared for it, I don’t think,” Carreen said, “for the overwhelming use of everything that they were going to need.”
Carreen was used to sewing many different things, and the idea of sewing masks for hospitals and physical therapists didn’t intimidate her. Although she originally made them so Katie could wear them with her patients, things grew from there.
“At first I thought, ‘I’m not going to make these because everybody’s making them,” she said. “President Trump said they had 43,000 coming from 3M in South Dakota. But then two weeks later, I was going to go to a shower for my granddaughter. I thought, ‘I never made the masks for my daughter-in-law, I better make one up for her.’ So I did. She wanted 100 of them. I said, ‘I can’t make 100 of these’ … We settled on 25. So that’s how it really got started.”
The idea of making masks during the COVID-19 pandemic isn’t new, and they’re easy to make, Carreen said. The problem, however, is that not all mask types can be accepted by hospitals. That’s why Pierson’s Smyl masks are different.
A new Smyl mask, created by Carreen Pierson.
“The easy ones, the pleated ones that everybody was making, you know, with those you could whip those out in a really short time,” she said. “The ones that I’m making have a pocket in them, so you put in a filter so you can take the filter out and they’re washable.”
Carreen estimated she makes 12 masks per day, three to four times per week, and she likes the idea that she’s helping.
“If we can keep this virus, the COVID virus, under control, it gives the person that’s getting them and wearing them a feeling of (being) somewhat more safe,” she said.
So far, Pierson has sold masks in Iowa, North Dakota and the Twin Cities area.
Why not Hutchinson?
“I don’t know if people in Hutchinson know I’m making them,” she said.
But every time Pierson sells a mask in the private sector, she donates another to a hospital or to someone who works in the health care field, such as a receptionist. And she’s not done because when her daughter-in-law asked for scrub hats, Pierson accepted the challenge.
“I’ve probably made two dozen (hats),” she said. “They’re less time-consuming (than masks).”
