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!!!
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!
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….
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.
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!
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!
