Brian, our youngest 11yo sewer

Brian is the youngest sewer in our team, we are so proud of him.

“ Hi, I’m Brian. I’m 11 years old and I live in Sydney. I have never lived outside Australia before. I am one of the only boys, or possibly the only boy that works and volunteers at Hong Kong Masks AUS. I like to sew and help others, and being in this group has helped me pass the time at home.

I stopped going to school in April and stayed at home with lots of homework When the holidays finally came, I honestly hadn’t had a lot to do. I can’t just go and visit friends, I can’t go to church, I can’t always go out and we couldn’t leave St Ives. And sometimes we just stay at home 24/7.

My mum tried to buy face masks, and she is one of the lucky ones. In our area, even toilet paper and paper towels are mostly available at Woolworths and Coles! But still, we knew that surgical masks can’t be wasted. Plus, they are disposable which means that you can’t use them again, and we don’t exactly know when COVID 19 is going to end. So, I decided to try and sew them myself. I originally intended to hand sew them, but we bought a Singer M1005. I used to have a sewing machine years ago, so I remember the basics.

One day my mum saw that a mum had started an Australian denomination of HK Mask. She realised that there was a Facebook as well. She joined and found out what it was for, and told me about HKMA. I wanted to join and make masks for the people who need them. So, I started to make some.

But then I realised that my sewing machine started to jam, and couldn’t even punch through two layers of fabric! Soon I exchanged it for a Semco Indigo 6 for $99; 50% off at SPOTLIGHT (sorry, I’m starting to act like a TV ad). I had lots of problems when I first started using it like I forgot how to thread a front-loading machine and to use some of the parts properly, but now I’m fine.

Ever since then I’ve been making other things for my parents and friends. I like the bags and the accessories on a YouTube channel called JB Life; take a look there and sew some of the things if you have time. I wanted to wear masks because my parents told me their experience in SARS, as well as showing me the charts, and I realised that face masks could work (although technically I haven’t made any for myself and I wanted to share and convince others that face masks do actually work.

Thanks for reading this and I hope that everyone will do their best to help others and spread the word of this group; Hong Kong Masks Australia. “