It’s been almost exactly 2 months since my trio of kids have been “homeschooled” and quarantined. It’s not all been sunshine and sprinkles, but it’s definitely been a new adventure. They have loved the lack of schedules and being able to do school work online but miss their friends.
Since I’m the teacher, mom and so much more this year the kids didn’t really get the take home gifts they would from school. They also weren’t able to go to the store to pick gifts so all around it’s going to be a much different celebration then normal. I truly don’t need store bought gifts and have taught my girls how a card or a picture can brighten someone’s day, so it’s been cute seeing what they did on their own today! My oldest made me some bracelets on her loomy band maker and a sweet picture while my middle child made a homemade card from her and baby sister. They’ve also made my coffee for me so I don’t have to “because it’s Mother’s Day” they’ve said they’ll do it!
We’ve eaten to many donuts and snuggled on the couch so far and I’m sure the rest of the day is gonna be filled with extra hugs and snuggles! We will call the grandmas to wish them a Happy Mother’s Day too and just enjoy a day of hopefully rest and relaxation!
So to all the Mommas out there try to enjoy the day as best you can! We’ve all been working extra hard these last few months and while it’s definitely not the normal life we are used to we are all surviving in our own ways! Happy Mother’s Day!
I’ve seen so many amazing tutorials for cloth face masks, but the only one I found that was suggesting using hair ties the measurements were way off and didn’t fit myself even in the biggest size. So I took some pictures as I modified the pattern and made it my own and to fit properly.
Due to the increasing need for face masks the 1/4” elastic you need to make them is sold out everywhere!!! As is most other elastics that you could cut down to use. So I was told try using hair tie elastics like the below picture. Best part was the Dollar Tree had these 15 for $1, which means 7 masks worth of hair ties for $1 with 1 extra to hold back your hair while you work!!!
These came from dollar tree, but you can find similar on amazon
The hair ties work as a great alternative. You just have to make a casing to enclose around the elastic and sew it up with the elastic in the middle. I took a few pictures to show how I did this. The measurements for cutting your fabric is two pieces one 7″ by 12″ and one 7″ by 10″ for a child and one 7″ by 14″ and one 7″ by 12″ for the adult sized. ***when I tried making this again it seemed the child size didn’t fit my toddler very well, but fit my 7 year old and 12 year old, so if you have a younger child I recommend making the child size one an inch smaller. You could also measure from just in front of your child’s ear across to the other side to get the correct width of fabric as masks this way will come to right in front of their ears and you’d need to add 2″ to have enough to make the casing for the hair ties but the 7” height would stay the same.***
For this pattern to work best you definitely need to cut your rectangles two different sizes to avoid so much bulk to sew through! The bottom layer is 2 inches bigger to avoid the bulk and encase the hair ties. So you cut two rectangles one 7×14 adults (7×12 kids) size and one 7×12 adults(7x10kids) size to start. Line them up so that there’s 1 inch space on either side of the smaller rectangle with right sides together. Stitch along the top and bottom only!
two rectangles
put them right sides together and stitch top and bottom only
top and bottom only stitched
Flip inside out and give a little press with the iron. Then top stitch along the top and bottom, this will help give the top and bottom some structure and helps hold down the bottom layers edge creating nice edge for the casing.
Next fold over about a 1/2″ on both short edges as the first step to make your casing and iron it down. See picture below….
I actually ironed both folds the first 1/2″ and then the second to make the casing and then opened it up for next step
Now there’s a way where you can fold this into thirds to make the pleats but honestly if you want to streamline the process skip that nonsense. Take the ironed layers to the sewing machine and along the shorter edge that’s open your going to put a quick stay stitch at the top and before you stitch any further fold up three pleats like the picture below. Then stitch right over them all! Stitch as close to the open edge you feel comfortable and don’t worry about perfection your about to cover these stitches up with the casing for the hair ties.
simply pinch the fabric in two spots to make the pleats
stitch the pleats down on both short edges along edge of your top fabric
Repeat the pleats on the opposite side of your material. Now your mask is pleated and you need to encase the hair ties. To do this I went to the ironing board and took that first folded edge on the side and folded it a second time to where it slightly overlapped the stitching you just made to hold the pleats in place. This creates your casing! Now I tucked the casing through the hair tie and carefully stitched the casing closed around the hair tie. Repeat for other side and your done! Hopefully the photos below help explain this process a little better!
you can see the creases in this picture that create the casing
slide elastic over whole mask so you can cover it with the casing as you sew
sew carefully and shift the elastic as needed to encase it in fabric
here I had to stop and adjust so that the hair tie would be encased in the fabric as I stitched
These do cover more of your face then the typical elastic made masks because you have to have more fabric to give the hair ties the reach they need to fit properly.
If this isn’t for you or you can’t find hair ties you can visit this site for an easy fabric tie tutorial. Also if you’ve got plenty of 1/4” elastic available this tutorial is what I started following and shows you the pleating technique I mentioned above. Doing it the way they show is the easiest by far to me, but there’s this tutorial that shows you a way to make them and has ties and is made using a more fitted pattern.
Personally if I’m going to make with fabric ties I’m going to do similar to this tutorial, but instead on needing a casing I’ll just make binding to use as ties. Then you have the rectangles the same size so u can encase the short ends in binding after you get to the step with them pleated. (maybe I’ll make another quick tutorial for that soon)
Stay safe everyone and find the good in your days it’ll help them pass much faster!
