I made my first face masks about 6 weeks ago, when we were preparing to go on our back-to-back cruises. I wasn’t as worried about the ships as I was the airports/airplanes but believe it or not, I haven’t used them. I guess I was chicken to look different.
I have not said a word about face masks because I have some real concerns about whether anything that I can make at home really helps in mitigating the transmission of disease. I still have my concerns, but I have heard that medical professional are using homemade masks over their N95 respirators to extend their usage.
don’t have elastic, this isa nurse friend of mine asked me to try to make some and I told her I would. My sister-in-law works in a medical facility and I just got a plea from her to make and send some masks. Now the fire it lit!
Note. I do have some elastic that is appropriate for face masks, but not very much and it is IMPOSSIBLE to purchase right now. You CAN use ties and apparently lots of people prefer ties.
Note 2. I am NOT an expert. At anything. And especially at disease prevention.
Here are some links for you.
The first masks I made were from this pattern from The Turban Project. It is basically a 6″ x 9″ rectangle. I did one with folds and one with elastic down the sides. I personally enjoy wearing the elastic side version, but the hubs prefers the folded version. I suggest the folded version due to the elastic shortage. One one I made the straps 8″ long which was too long for me. On the other I tried 6.5″ or 7″ and I like it better, but it is too tight for the hubs. This might be another argument for ties.
To be honest, I like the ties.
I found this pattern from Phoebe Health Care. I will admit that I was somewhat overwhelmed by the instructions. As in. . . where the heck am I supposed to buy waterproof fabric??? Here are the instructions which link to the pattern. PHOEBE INSTRUCTIONS I have not personally tried this.
There are patterns available at JoAnn.com but they ALL use elastic ear loops, so if you have elastic, this is a good place to go.
If you don’t have elastic, this pattern from Sweet Red Poppy is a good one. She uses bias tape. Unfortunately I gave away two BAGS of bias tape a couple of months ago. You can make your own bias tape out of fabric, so don’t let that scare you off.
Now. . . with all that said, I made a pattern and instructions to deal with what I have on hand. It is recommended that you use 100% cotton fabric. I washed mine in HOT water to make sure it had fully “shrunk” before I started to ensure that the weave was the tightest possible. I am also using lightweight iron-on fusible interfacing as an extra layer of protection. If you do not have this, I would just use 3-4 layers of cotton fabric
