Glitter Outbreak

We have had a glitter outbreak in our house this late winter. Being glitter, I am sure it will continue well into spring, summer and who knows when it will end. Can one ever really get rid of glitter?  I know the source of the glitter.  My wife likes to put her sewing skills to work, and so she occasionally engages the task of making a t-shirt quilt.  In almost all instances of the number she has sewn, they have been made for young people in their senior year of high school, before they move on to, and for their use at, college.  The t-shirt quilt business had been fairly robust in years past, but she has not done many recently.  This year she got a request from one of her former co-workers who has a daughter about to graduate and was asked to make her a t-shirt quilt.

Glit-20 Outbreak source

As a testament to the number of t-shirts young people receive, there is seemingly a t-shirt for every sport, or activity in which they are or were involved.  Most parents, she has sewn for in the past, weed out t-shirts they would like to see in their child's quilt and bring them to my wife. Usually, the t-shirt quilts have been made as a graduation gift, a surprise the the child.  One would think the child would miss a t-shirt or two or three, and that may happen, but I have been told they have so many t-shirts they would not miss twelve, twenty, thirty or whatever the number may be that goes into a quilt.  In the case one was missed, in the overall supply chain my wife is well removed from any in-home squabbles of a missing t-shirt. The t-shirt quilt is often a graduation gift, and in many instances the parent wanting the quilt for their child will tell my wife what color fabric to put between the t-shirt fronts, and on the back. My wife would buy the fabric, get the batting, and then assemble the quilt.

It is Everywhere

This year was different.  The girl knew she would be getting a quilt, after all her older siblings had, so she picked out her t-shirts, and with her mom they chose the fabric to use. This gets to the crux of the story.  For the front edging, and the back fabric mom and daughter chose a fabric with a play of  mainly shades/hues of medium to dark blues and some black, but with glitter.  Yes, glitter. And lots of glitter.  I guess the glitter gives the dark colors some pizzazz.  Can you imagine having a glitter blanket?  I am not sure what it is about girls, but some seem to gravitate to glitter.  Perhaps it is a throw back to the princess nature growing up, or revenge on the parents, or just too much pent up estrogen.  I lived in a dorm for two years, and the dorm beds are often used for seating (whether it be to solve the world problems, or a wapatuli party), so one can imagine the spread of glitter that will occur through her dorm.

Edging of quilt, same as back

But, before it goes to her dorm, it had to be assembled, and that was done by my wife.  My wife washed this fabric, like other fabrics, before doing her handi-work. Then came our laundry day. When helping fold and putting away the laundry nothing looked much amiss.  This was not the case the next morning.  When I completed my shower, I of course dried off with my towel.  A minute later when I was starting to shave I looked in the mirror and saw a mess of sparkles on my head, neck and chest. If one were to have looked at my head, I could easily have been mistaken for the Times' Square New Years Eve ball, only with a mustache.  "Oh my gosh, why am I so sparkly?", I thought.  Sparkly is not a term people would associate with me or my personality. Being severely nearsighted if I did not know better I would have thought I was experiencing a detached retina. My eye doctor has told me that if you ever see flashing or sparkling lights head to the emergency room. Well, I was seeing sparkling lights, but it was really the glowing, glaring glitter magnified by the fluorescent light  above the mirror. It only took a nano-second to realize, as I tried to regain my thoughts among the brilliant flashes that were making my mind spin, that the sparkles had come from the washer or dryer where the glitter fabric had found a home for a short period of time a few days earlier.

Completed project
Photo by Toni Hovel

I don't know how they attach the glitter to the fabric, perhaps by some type of glue, or maybe little invisible prongs.  I do know I had glitter on the neck, face and chest, I chose not to further examine my body, as there is little I can do.  I did try to wipe it off my neck and face, and was partially successful.  Of course, when I wiped it off it is not like it goes in the garbage.  There are a number of locations in which it could go: onto the counter, into the sink, on my hand towel, on the floor or, to one could hope to glitter hell.

If the glitter is on my towels, that means it is also on my clothes.  Even two weeks later I still find some glitter hanging around on a shirt sleeve, my face, my neck, my hand, just as a few examples.  There was glitter on the basement rugs in the sewing room, there was glitter on the living room carpet where the pieces were laid out to find best assembly, and there is still glitter seemingly forever stuck to the kitchen table, particularly in the area that is well worn from the news print that has accumulated onto the kitchen table.  When vacuuming, I wonder how much glitter is in all the dust bunnies that form in the vacuum's canister.  As I started the post this past Wednesday, I noticed glitter on the cuff of my shirt, on my hand, and on my wife--both face and clothes. Thursday while shaving I noticed glitter on my face. And, today, Sunday, as I am about to post the blog, I still found a speck or two on my face.

My wife, being the one who was at the epicenter of the 2020 glitter outbreak, but I have not really noticed much on her, although it occurs occasionally.  It is not like the stuff seems to disintegrate.  It always seems to hang around, perhaps more so than, well, certain viruses. The glitter pandemic in our household started a few weeks ago and its overall distribution within the household seems to be on the decrease, but that is what I can notice.  This household glitter explosion takes me back to my college and grad school days in geography where I studied various spatial dispersion (distribution) models. The problem is the quilt moved to different parts of the house (basement, kitchen table, living room), hence we have the issue of community spread. While I may not know from what exact place the glitter came on my cuff for example, I know from where it originated.  It is probably transferred into our cars, and who knows perhaps even transported to the few places we now go. And, it is probably still hanging around in the washer and dryer. Because it is in the house, I cannot social distance myself from the great 2020 glitter outbreak.  The quilt is finished, and luckily the glitter outbreak is now contained within a large plastic bag.

Wife at work on the quilt

If I had thought of it sooner, I could have created and published a glitter dispersion model for use in other situations. Glitter when it is touched seems to want to hang on to you.  It is as if the glitter square has little tentacles worse than those small plants seeds that stick to clothes and hair. If I had a microscope I would examine a piece in greater detail. As for the girl, when she uses her quilt in her college dorm room, the dorm becomes a new location for another glitter outbreak.  Those people that are glitter adverse may want to social distance themselves from the dorm room she will occupy.  So, as most of the world, including myself, deals with the deadly Covid-19 pandemic, I have to also deal with decorated due to the Glit-20 outbreak in which I am an unwilling recipient.

On a serious note, I hope all are practicing social distancing, and limiting trips.  Stay Healthy.