Like many others, I have been sewing face covering for those who need/want them during the COVID-19 pandemic. I used up all the pretty cotton fabric that I had and moved on to sheets.
I started with the pleated masks with four ties and quickly moved on to the fitted masks. At first I was making ties to match, but cutting, ironing and sewing the ties was very time consuming.
At some point, while making strips for rug weaving, I learned that you could cut t-shirts into strips. If you pull them, they stretch and then curl at the edges. For use as ties, I ran them through the sewing machine using a zigzag stitch. After knotting the ends, these ties worked well. They were faster than the woven cloth ties and had a little stretch that helped with the fit.
Eventually, I found the nylon knee high trick. If you slice the stockings into 2″ bands, like calamari, the resulting circular straps are perfect for over the ear masks. The strips are soft and stretchy. Perfect.
I made over one hundred masks, giving them to anyone who needed them. Then I started noticing that some that I had made did not fit very well on people with larger faces and those with large beards. So today I modified the pattern and made some more.
I made the pattern wider and extended it downward to cover a larger chin area or beard. I took a picture of the patterns on a ruled cutting board so they could be copied. Another way to get the pattern is to display the picture on a screen, making it larger until the three inch lines are actually three inches on the screen. Then cover the screen with wax paper and gently trace around the pattern.
I didn’t include all the sewing instructions because there are already so many available. The new, larger mask seems to fit very well so I wanted to share it.
I didn’t have a mannequin that was the right size to display the mask so I used my classic KitchenAid mixer to give you an idea of the size.
I hope you find the new pattern useful. As always, your polite and helpful comments are welcome.
Knitting, Weaving, Writing 