From photography to sewing: one Fisherville resident on staying essential during the pandemic

By Kaitlyn Clark

The Haldimand Press

FISHERVILLE—When Ontario locked down and Melanie Steeves’ business, Toppline Design Photography, was deemed non-essential, Steeves saw this as an opportunity for “some extra time to help out in other ways”.

“I started to sew to help out after seeing a request from Kathryn Stengel of the Haldimand War Memorial Hospital. She was asking for crafty people to make and donate surgical caps to the hospital,” said Steeves. “I cut out the pieces required for the caps and from the smaller scraps of fabric left over I started to create non-medical face masks for those people who wanted a little bit of extra protection when they had to go out in public. It was a way for me to use up as much of the fabric as I could.”

Steeves first gave these masks to her family and friends, but requests then began to roll in through social media, particularly from people looking for ways to help protect their elderly loved ones. 

“All of this also led into creating the ‘ear savers’. These are a small strip of ribbon with buttons sewn on each end,” explained Steeves. “Those that have to wear masks for eight to 10 hours a day could slip the elastic behind their head and onto the buttons of the ear savers, instead of wearing them traditionally behind their ears. This reduces the open sores that people were getting behind their ears from the hours of wearing their personal protective equipment (PPE) masks.”