More Masks for the Family

I'm on my second round of making face masks for the family (or Fabric Face Coverings, as we are now required to call them). This time, I've included some for the children, even though under 11s will not be obliged ro wear them. I'm now concentrating on the 2 patterns I've found most useful, one for great fit, one for speed. And trying to make them more interesting with my fabric choices.

Find out more about my two 'most useful' patterns (pictured here), including links to the free patterns and tutorials, in the rest of this post. I will also reflect on how we've made them work best for us.

I made a first round of face masks for the family way back in early April, when our UK Government, and the US Government ( or at least Mr Trump), were saying that wearing masks was a stupid idea. My family like stupid ideas, so decided they would all like at least one mask, and I did a lot of research then, which I wrote up in a couple of posts in April, here, and here. And everyone (at least, the adults and one older child) got at least one mask. 

But soon after that, I joined a  local group, Sewing 4 Kingston, which had been formed to meet a huge demand for PPE from front-line workers.  

The group is just winding down its PPE efforts now, after sending out tens of thousands of items, but will continue to "Sew 4 Kingston", producing Wiggly bags, items for babies in the neo-natal care units, quilts etc. I've really contributed only a tiny part to this, mainly the fabric face coverings and FFC laundry bags pictured above, but to do this meant I had to take a break from family sewing.

And then, there was a backlog of clothes for the grand-children to finish, that had also been put on hold. It was warmer weather by now, so they really needed those shorts and sun tops.

Now I've caught up a bit, and started on the next round of masks for the family. In the meantime, there have been literally hundreds of new patterns for masks or fabric face coverings - every pattern designer, it seems has to have their own, and some even charge for them. There were also 4 mask designs that had been approved for front line workers in the S4K group, with some specific requirements - like nose wires and a filter pocket. But when it came down to it, I still liked the two I'd identified all those weeks ago.

For fit, I still like best the Fleece Fun fitted mask (what my family have dubbed the 'muzzle mask'. That's this one. Somewhat to my surprise, as you'd think we all had different size faces, almost eveyone liked the adult size mask - and they all came to the conclusion separately and independently, that it was the most comfortable and the best fit. You can see it fits closely round the cheeks, chin and nose, with no gaps. For now, all the new ones are using this pattern. More about that later. 

But for making a number of masks really fast, that are almost as good a fit, this one from Billette's Baubles allso went down really well. In case that link no longer works, here is my review which has all the measurements and instructions you need. 

It was also very easy to adapt for the 12 year old boy below, who has a narrow face - I just made it 1" or 2.5cm narrower. I used long enough strings on this style of mask so that the user could decide whether to tie around the head or behind the ears. (Actually, I do this on all masks now.)

These all have a channel down each side to hold the elastic. This has the advantage that it can be changed if needed. But I was also getting very low on supplies of elastic at this point, and I had found one long string of elastic, up one channel, across the top, and down the other, required less elastic than 4 separate strings. Which is what the ones on the left have.

Because it covers more of the face, though, it can be a bit hot in ther middle of summer, as we are now. 

So now back to the Fleece Fun mask. This is the mask I’ve been making now. But although it’s the best fitting one we’ve found, even with only 3 layers, it’s 18 darts per mask, so it's not a quick make, and I will still have the Billette's Baubles one in my repertoire.

The adult size Fleece Fun Fitted Mask seems to fit most of us perfectly, men and women. Although children under 11 are not yet required by the Government to wear masks, we decided to have some just in case. Besides, they all really wanted female superhero masks, as did their mothers.

The small 'Child' size has worked well for two of my grand-daughters, 6 and 5.  it is quite small, though. It seems as though the darts are more or less the same length as on the adult version, but the central area is smaller. You can see the size difference here between the Adult and Child versions. 

We had the oldest grand-daughter (6 1/2 going on 11) try on both sizes. The Child one was pretty tight, but the adult one came up too high on her face - almost covered her eyes. So I drew out a new enlarged / in-between pattern for her. I'm yet to find out how it fits. UPDATE: Apparently it's a perfect fit, but I haven't seen a photo yet.

As I mentioned, the adult size seems to fit most of the adults in the family, but I was worried it would be too small for one son-in-law, who has a wider face. I’ve just made the large version for him (see the red one below), but it does seem very big. I’ll see him at the weekend so we’ll see how it fits then. I may end up doing what the Fleece Fun post suggested before they provided a larger version, i.e. you use the ordinary adult version but instead of sewing inside out and turning, you stack it the right way out and sew bias tape all round so it’s just that bit bigger.

I found it helpful to stick the pattern on some stiff card to assist in the cutting out. I was then progressively able to clip the card to the fabric as I went round cutting out. 

Once I started mask making again, I though a bit of mass-production would help, so I aimed to do most of the cutting out first, then stacking the cut-out pieces in piles of the three layers I was using.

First, I sewed all the darts on all the masks, and clipped and trimmed them. Next, I stacked them back in their sets of three, with the right sides of the outer and inner facing, and the 4 peices of elastic inside clipped at the corners. (Top left in the next picture.) Bottom left in that picture is a remaining stack of masks that have been sewn together, apart from the turning gap.

At the top right of the picture above, you can see how the mask looks after I've clipped the curves. And bottom, right, masks that have been turned through. with the gaps sewn up. So far, so much as the Fleece Fun tutorial 

I made a number of other adaptations.  The Fleece Fun tutorial suggests using 2 layers of something called ‘shop towels’ in the middle – no idea what that is, it’s obviously a kind of non-woven material that is available in the US, but not in th UK. Instead, I used 1 layer of sew-in medium weight interfacing and that seems to have worked fine. But obviously if you can get shop towels you can try those. I haven't so far tried adapting this pattern to have a filter pocket by means of which you can add another disposable layer.

I’ve also encased the wire inside, by moving the bias tape channel onto the wrong side of the outer layer before sewing it all together. Here's  how it was originally, on the outside of the mask, following the Fleece Fun tutorial.

But I found I could easily lose the wire.  In fact, it was very lucky that the first batch I washed, I had put inside a laundry bag, as I'd forgotten to remove the wire. It came out and was pretty tangled up, but at least it hadn't got into the innards of the machine. The masks we were making for key workers were required to have a permanent wire inside the body of the mask - what's good enough for them is certainly good enough for us. So I moved it inside.

You'll note that I also made the wire somewhat longer  – about 4” / 10 cm after bending the ends in, so the casing was just about 5 1/2". This was a suggestion from one of my daughters, who wears glasses. You get a better seal if you can bend it not just over your nose but also slightly along the cheeks. So I now make all of them with the longer wire. I've also started 'calling in' the original masks so I can alter them to having a longer, internal wire.

 I’ve used 6mm elastic at each of the 4 the corners. I’ve considered adapting it to have a filter pocket and / or a channel at the sides so you can replace perished elastic, and if this goes on for years I may do that. But we don’t currently wear them that often, and they’ve lasted well so far. 

I also put the turning gap at the bottom rather than on the side, especially for the tiny ones. I found this gave a better gap to turn the masks out. But in order to ensure the bottom hem would stay in place, I tacked the seam allowances down to the wrong sides of the fabric layers before turning the mask the right way out. I top-stitched all the masks all the way around to close the gap, and to hold the wire more firmly in place.

Here are 4 of the finished superhero masks - two Adult size on the right, and two Child size on the left.

These masks below all went to one family, for the parents and one child.

These went to a mother and daughter.

This is one of a couple more Fleece Fun masks destined for in-laws.

My mask-making is still work in progress, so there will be others to add soon. 

Now for a bit of fun. I'd asked the family about fabric choice as I started making this second round of masks. How about any of these, folks? (The superhero fabric had already been bagged.)

But one of my sons-in-law had been slow to respond. I tried again. This one maybe?

Still no enthusiasm. Maybe not manly enough - what else do I have in the stash?

And this is what I got in reply.

Oh, be careful what you wish for, dear boy! 

I didn't have the materials to make one in black, but I thought red, gold and black would be a good alternative. So here's his mask.

My daughter has said that, knowing him, he may well go out in this! But the gold mesh and the eye mask part can easily be removed, and then he's left with a plain red mask. But yeah, he likes it! (And apparently the larger size does fit him.)