What Are You Working On? is for all things hand-made, home-made, and creative in a variety of mediums.
Like many of us, I’m deep in making fabric masks. I did the first 30 for a series of group homes for developmentally handicapped children and adults, most of whom had additional health problems. Yes, I know this is not any sort of cure all to block viruses, but better than nothing. My LQG had been asked to come up with 300 masks for this group, called Milestone, and we did and then some. We have about 145 members, so that was good. Next came family and friends. I will add the first two masks I did were for my brother who had a massive stroke two years ago and his wife. He has some breathing issues, After that, I did more masks for family and friends. So far I’ve done about 50ish masks.
There are many, many patterns on the Internet. This is the one I liked best.
The basic pattern I use is two rectangles of quilting fabric (it has a nice tight weave). For most masks, I cut them out at 6.5” high and 9” wide. For some men, especially those with beards, like my husband, I have another template that is 7.5” high and 9.5” wide. That works for the larger faces. For children, I still use the 6” by 9”, but instead of elastic, I use ties so they can be adjusted better.
The biggest problem overall has been getting the elastic. Quarter inch elastic is very, very hard to come by at this point. I found 6 yds; a girlfriend gave me me some 1/2” wide in white and black, and for the last ones, I found some left over pieces of waist band elastic I hadn’t used that I cut down.
I cut the elastic to between 6.5” and 7” depending on men or women. For men I usually use the 7”; for women 6.5”.
Then it’s on to sewing. I put the two pieces of fabric, right sides together. I pin the elastic between the layers at the top and bottom of the short sides, pushing the elastic to the inside. I also usually add two pins at the bottom to remind me to leave an opening to turn the masks right side out. This is how mine look when I’ve pinned the elastic in. The curve of the elastic pulls the fabric in a bit. I usually have the elastic sticking out just a little bit to make sure I catch it.
I usually don’t put pins in the fabric when I am sewing straight lines. I just pull the fabric into place. After sewing it looks like this.
I go back and forth over the elastic and at the openings and at the corners to reinforce the stitching.
Next I clip the corners using pinking shears and turn the masks right side out and give them a good steam press. You could slip stitch the opening closed but I top stitch all the way around at the end, so I don’t bother.
Next I pin the pleats. Some patterns say two pleats and some say three. I prefer 3 pleats.
I top stitch around all four sides. Because the sewing machine isn’t that happy going through 6 layers of fabric, I increase the stitch length to 3 (from 2.5) and use a Teflon foot.
Then it is done.
I don’t iron down the pleats. Just a personal choice.
One mask that took longer was the one for my hubby (NormAl1792) I had some knight fabric, but the knights were too small, so I had to add fabric on all four sides. He also has to have the larger model. He definitely likes it.
So, I hope everyone is doing as well as they can. Stay healthy, everyone!
And What Are You Working On in social isolation?
This is being cross posted on the DK Quilt Guild. I think having a short visual tutorial on mask making is important. It is easy and if you don’t have a machine, it can be hand sewn. I know, I did one to see how it would turn out.