Phillips, fiancée Devita make masks to help

Orioles reliever Evan Phillips and his fiancée, Elizabeth Devita, were in the early stages of quarantine when they first heard people needed masks. Their lives upended by the coronavirus pandemic, they wanted to do their part to help others. They wanted to make a difference.

Which is how Devita found herself on the floor of their Sarasota, Fla., apartment trying to glue fabric together, then struggling to sew with a needle and thread. The goal at first was to find a quarantine hobby, then to donate hand-made masks to family, friends and others in need in places like nursing homes. What blossomed was a business neither Phillips nor Devita saw coming.

“I guess I thought maybe a couple of people here and there would order some,” said Devita. “I wasn’t expecting it to be as many as it did.”

One day on his way to physical therapy, Phillips, who was rehabbing an elbow injury at the time, purchased a sewing machine. Soon the couple was producing upwards of fifty masks in a single day, more than 10 times the output they could manage by hand. They’ve been selling them under the PrettilyEDesigns label on Etsy for months, using the profits to make more masks that they give away.

There are roughly 80 different masks available on the PrettilyEDesigns Etsy page at the moment, with designs ranging from pro sports logos to floral patterns to children’s themes. They’ve sold more than 800 since the pandemic began, shipping to customers as far away as France and Belgium.

“We were isolated in our apartment and didn’t really know what to do,” Phillips said. “This gave us an identity and helped us through those months.”

“We wanted to be doing something meaningful with our time and not just watching all of this happen,” Devita said. “It is about the most random thing that could’ve happened. But it turned into something pretty wonderful.”

Making cotton masks is not a one-person job, given the increased demand. Devita takes the lead, handling the design, inventory and customer relations aspects of the business. Phillips pitches in with production and found a real niche in shipping, often making thrice-daily runs to the post office and the fabric store for supplies.

“We made a pretty good team,” Phillips said.

His teammates agree. PrettilyEDesigns masks can be found all over Oriole Park these days, worn by O’s relievers Cody Carroll, Paul Fry, Shawn Armstrong, pitching coach Doug Brocail and others. A Tennessee native, Carroll wears a Tennessee Titans themed mask. Brocail sports a smoky black-and-white design to match his big salt-and-pepper beard. Phillips himself is a superhero guy; his mask is an ode to the Marvel movie franchise.

“Every day, Doug Brocail comments on how comfortable the mask is,” Phillips said. “We tried to find him the manliest one we could.”

The couple said their intent wasn’t to make any sort of statement, acknowledging how mask wearing has become politicized as the pandemic has worn on. It was simply to help people, and it’s something they plan on continuing to do. The orders keep rolling in.

“It kind of made the world smaller, knowing we all need the same thing and are going through exactly the same thing,” Devita said. “Knowing we could kind of make an impact on that level was definitely really cool to us.”