No 1 Fashion Trend for 2020 - Face Mask

I was in Pete’s Emporium yesterday – a local ‘buy everything you could ever need for crafting store’.  I was there, along with everyone else, to purchase supplies needed to make masks. I overheard the sales assistant say, ‘It’s like every crafter has a new challenge’.  I agree, but OH! It’s so much fun!

For the last few weeks, since our resurgence in NZ, I’ve been wearing a mask every time I go out. The standard blue PPE masks you buy are painful.  They are too big for my face and they creep up into my eyes. I’m constantly pulling them down.

If you wear glasses, you’ll know that you can’t wear glasses and the mask – well you can but not if you want to see.  Your glasses fog up.  

Also, they are very uncool (enter teenage son!).

The Challenge

Sooo, fuelled by a challenge from Jenna to make a mask she could wear with her glasses on I started thinking. There must be a way.  The problem with the standard mask is that it doesn’t sit close enough to your nose.  How to resolve that problem.

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Mmmmm!

The Pattern

Turns out I didn’t need to – someone else had done it for me.  A chat with a fellow customer at Pete’s and a quick internet search turned up this mask.

Even better, this pattern was free and worked wonderfully.

I was happy to donate $5.00US ($7.99NZ) to Barb for her efforts because, really this pattern is spectacular!

Did it Work

These face masks fit well. I tried them onus all.  I think for Jesse I would extend the side a little as he’s quite a large man these days, but they still fit.

The most important criteria was met!

The glasses stay UNFOGGED!

The other thing I really loved about this pattern is that it was super quick to make.  I made 10 in four hours! That’s less than half an hour each.  OK, so the first one took me a little longer, maybe 45 minutes, just until I got my head in the game. After that, they were super quick.

Materials

I used a water-resistant fabric (like you’d make a trench coat out of) for the lining. I have read that this stops the water droplets penetrating so it seemed like a good idea to me.

For the outside I used cotton in pretty patterns and varying weights for the outside.  This worked really well.

Both these fabrics were really easy to work with.

I also used a small piece of interfacing for the nose piece – I used non-iron on but iron on would have worked better (I didn't have any).

For the nose piece I also used a pipe cleaner to allow the mask to be shaped in tightly to the nose.

Important!

You need to buy really soft elastic.  I purchased some specifically for this purpose.

The Method

Barb has a great video on how to make this mask.

I changed it up a little bit:

• I used a pipe cleaner instead of the specific bendable metal sold for this purpose. It worked really well.  
• I top stitched my pipe cleaner in place.

• I did not add the stiffener in the centre – I don’t think it needed it and, to be perfectly honest, I didn’t have anything to use so I just left it out.
• I turned over my ends twice so my casing was neater and I didn’t have to zig zag.
• I also made the masks adjustable – I did this by adding extra length to the elastic.  I used 25cm of elastic and tied the two ends together.  I popped the knot into the casing.  Then I took the folded end and tied it to the required length.

Overview

• Great pattern, and it’s free.
• Perfect fit.
• Stopped the fogging problem.
• Quick and easy to make.

You should make these masks – quick, easy and they turned out amazing.  

You could make them in all the colours of the rainbow. Of course, I had to make them from unicorn fabric for Jenna, the Unicorn Lady.

You could get really creative.