RAD Crafting Collective

I’ve recently made some facemasks at my mom’s request. She’s going on a couple cruises soon with my grandma and my nephew, so she wanted to see if I could make some (non-medical) facemasks for the trips. She provided some fabric and told me about a youtube tutorial she had watched, which I then viewed myself. It looked relatively easy so I just jumped right in.

I mostly used quilting cotton for the outer layer and flannel for the inner layer. There’s no inner filter as it’s not an airtight fit so it wouldn’t really be helpful. I used pipe cleaners for the nose piece on the adult sizes since Mom and Grandma both wear glasses. I used 1/8″ elastic as I didn’t have any 1/4″, but also used some pieces of fold over elastic topstitched together for coordinating elastic on a few of the masks.

Measurements: (All fabric is width x height.)

Toddler size:
– 6″x6″ quilting cotton for outer layer
– 6″x6″ flannel or quilting cotton for inner layer
– Two pieces of 5″ long 1/8″ elastic

Child size:
– 7.5″x6″ quilting cotton for outer layer
– 7.5″x6″ flannel or quilting cotton for inner layer
– Two pieces of 5.5″ long 1/8″ elastic

Adult size:
– 9″x7″ quilting cotton for outer layer
– 9″x7″ flannel or quilting cotton for inner layer
– Two pieces of 6.5-7″ long 1/8″ elastic

The easiest way to go about assembly is to do each step for all your masks at once.

I cut all the fabric first then the elastic. I used ziploc bags to keep the sizes separate.

Press all fabric. I used my new toy, the EasyPress 2, since the squares are…square? And because it was new and I hadn’t used it before 😀

Sandwich elastic between layers, right sides of fabric facing in.

First I pinned the elastic to the outer layer, and then put the inner layer over it and replaced the pins. I did it this way so I could make sure they were angling in from the corners correctly.

If the outer fabric is directional, mark the bottom of the mask, as that’s where you’ll turn it right side out.
Sew around mask, leaving a 1-2″ gap on the bottom. Be careful to keep the elastic in the corners (I reinforced each corner with some backstitching) and also out of the side seam.

If you are inserting a nose piece, fold the ends of a pipe cleaner towards the center and twist to secure. Align pipe cleaner along inside top seam, centering it on the mask. Change to a zigzag stitch, as wide as possible, and shortened a bit. Sew OVER the pipe cleaner, on the seam allowance.

Mask still inside out, pipe cleaner centered.

My original settings for zig zag. I ended up shortening it to 1.0 for subsequent masks.

Try to sew OVER the pipe cleaner, to avoid potentially breaking your needle.

Turn masks right side out. I used a tube turner thingy:

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Press masks again. I used my super steam iron for this so I could get in the corners without pressing the elastic.
Fold the pleats into the masks. This isn’t an exact science, I just eyeballed it!

I found that two pleats worked better than three. I tried both, but the 2 seemed to move less when top stitching and had less bulk since I could make the pleats not overlap each other at all.

Topstitch around mask. I started at the bottom left corner, so I could close the space on the bottom where I turned them right-side-out first. Then up along the pleats, across the top, and back down the pleats on the other side.
For masks with nose pieces: Topstitch further away from the top seam so you can avoid sewing over the pipe cleaner. It also creates a visual effect to show which side is the top.