How I Sew Re-Usable Fabric Face Masks

I HATE sewing these re-usable fabric face masks, and I hate seeing my family wear them. 

I mean, they're not hard or unpleasant or tedious to sew or anything, and the designs look fine and fit well and everyone says they're comfortable, but I hate everything about this pitiful, uncertain shot in the dark in the face of a global pandemic.

I haven't even read the "do they/don't they" articles about whether or not these fabric face masks do a dang thing to protect one from a highly contagious virus. I figure that if there's even a .01% chance that wearing it offers .01% more protection, then obviously we're going to wear them when we have to be out.

Or, in Syd's case, when she's chilling on the couch reading the instructions for her new DIY screenprinting kit:

 

I'm not going to tell you how to sew these face masks, because I don't want to be responsible for you. Instead, I'm gong to tell you how, when I wasn't busy reading every book ever written, *I* sewed these face masks, roughly following the tutorial printed in my local newspaper, since this is also the type of re-usable fabric face mask that local medical establishments, nursing homes, and non-profits that serve the community are asking for. 

For each mask, I used two pieces of 100% cotton quilting fabric, cut to 6"x 9", and two pieces of elastic around 1/8" to 1/4" wide, cut to 6.5" long. I later learned that although Syd is taller than me, she has a petite face, and her elastic probably should have been 5" long at the max. She shortened her own elastic to make her mask fit her well.

I've used both 1/8" elastic and 1/4" elastic, and found that the stretch matters more than the width. For a couple of family masks, I used 1/4" elastic that I pulled out of a super old fitted sheet as I was ripping it up for kitchen rags, and the super old, super soft, super stretchy elastic worked great. For a friend, though, I made another four masks using new 1/4" elastic, and it turned out to be too stiff and uncomfortable to be practical.

I put the two pieces of 6" x 9" fabric right sides together, then pinned the elastic to the corners. I started by folding back the top piece of fabric, and placing the elastic where I wanted it against the front of the bottom fabric:

I wanted it to be at an angle like that so that I didn't catch more than the end of it when I was sewing the fabric pieces together.

I pinned one end of the elastic just to the bottom fabric--



--straightened it out, because twisted elastic would be NO fun behind the ears--

--and then pinned the other end to the corner below it:

I repeated this with the other elastic on the other end of the mask, and then I pinned the top fabric down, sandwiching the elastic between the two fabrics.

I sewed around the perimeter of the mask, leaving an approximately 3" opening for turning and backstitching over the elastic at the corners:

I clipped the corners to reduce bulk--

--and then turned the mask right side out. I finger-pressed the raw edges of the opening to the inside to match the seam, then ironed the mask flat.

I edge-stitched along the top and bottom of the mask only, once again backstitching when I stitched over the elastic. Those little buggers are not coming off!

Because I used a 1/4" seam to sew the mask together, I was left with a flat mask that was approximately 5.5" tall. From the bottom, I pinched the mask at 1.5", then brought that fold down to the .5" mark, ironed it to crease it, and pinned it:



Next, I pinched the fabric at the 2.5" mark, folded it down until this second fold butted up to the first fold, then ironed and pinned it:

I never did figure out how to get my tucks perfectly even, so for the third tuck, I just pinched the fabric 1" from the top, brought it down until that fold butted up to the second fold, then ironed and pinned it:

Eh, they're not totally noticeably uneven, and you can't see the tucks when we're wearing them, anyway.

The only remaining task was to sew down both sides, stitching those tucks in place:

With my fifth mask, I started backstitching every time I sewed over a fold, and I think they look a lot sturdier.

Here are our family masks in all their glory:

And here's me about to low-key risk my life and the lives of my family for a trip to the grocery store!

At least we bought enough food that, barring emergencies, we shouldn't have to shop again for a month.

And by that, I mean that we bought a bunch of delicious food that we'll eat all of in a week, and then we'll go back to the rice and beans and cheese that we already had in the house for the three weeks after that.