It seems the covid-19 pandemic isn’t slowing down in the US anytime soon. It’s unfortunate that it continues to spread, but the health officials all say one way to possibly help stop the spread is by wearing face masks in public. While cotton made face masks will NOT prevent you from contracting covid-19 it is said to help more then not wearing anything.
During this pandemic I have made well over 200 masks! I know some who have made double and triple that already too. Personally with 3 kids at home 24/7 I’m doing what I can when I can while I help my kids cope with our current situation.
So throughout my face mask making adventure I have tried several different patterns and adjusted them here and there. I even designed my own using hair ties! What I’ve learned is we all have our ways of stitching and not all patterns no matter how well written necessarily turn out the same.
I’m going to link you to two of my favorite patterns and then in the next day or so I’m hoping to do a post with how I made each my own.
The main thing I changed up was assembly as a wonderful woman who runs a quilt shop in a neighboring town showed me how she sewed up masks quicker. I loved her technique on elastic placement that cut back the time it took for me to make each mask since previously I would pin each side of the elastic and her technique stopped that step.
Basically, for those who may not need the visual you place the elastic diagonally in the corner while sewing them right sides together. This stitches over the elastic twice securing it and is easy to hold and move around without pinning it. Most patterns either have the elastic tucked in half an inch or so down from the top seams or placed after turning right sides out. When I get the post done I’ll add a link here to show you what I mean too.
My biggest recommendation if you’re just starting to make masks, do a test run first before you make a bunch. Make sure the pattern you chose fits you right! Kids are harder to size too, so definitely only make one to try first!
And with that, here’s to another day of stitching and staying home. I hope you stay safe and find the good in each 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!
