Adapted from the Jesse mask to fit under glasses & flush right across the cheeks to the ears. I have tried 5 different mask designs so far & we like the fit of this one….so far…Theres a couple of new ones I’ll probably try out, in my quest for the one mask that will rule them all. But this one is pretty good.

Forgive me, please, for the flow of this post as I abruptly launch into how I make these & then build into the details & concerns. My thinking runs around in circles on the best of days & at this time of Covid in which we find ourselves, they are full free range.

Furthermore, please know from the start that these masks are WAY OVER THE TOP per time & attention & level of finish. I have the time. Things have been troubling my mind & making these has been calming, repetitive in a good way & rewarding. But overkill, thy name is Rosie.

The major feature of these masks is that they’re FULLY REVERSIBLE & I get to reminisce on old makes when digging up the scraps & be amused by the cool combinations. My favourite one so far is the one I focus one in this post: it’s like D&G meets Prada.

I’ve honestly lost track of how many I’ve made & I’m batch sewing by continuous stitching to speed things up. With the stack of pairs ready to go beside the machine I just backstitch at beginning & end of each piece & ‘run on’ one after another in a chain. It saves an amazing amount of time, just snip them apart afterwards

This mesh conforms beautifully over the nosum & holds it’s shape very well but it is pricey However its also stuff I already have on hand in the studio & it can handle the bending backwards & forth when reversing the sides. (I have used sculpture armature wire & its not great, it breaks too easily even though its a heavy gauge. I have also used florist’s wire doubled over & its good). But I like this mesh stuff & I already have it & its overkill, so therefor has my name on it. Rosie the Overkiller. And I’m just getting started.

8-10mm wide by 100mm long folded strips. I nestle it in a scrap of quilting cotton for padding & to ensure nothing will poke out. If using wire, I bend the ends into loops & hand tack through these to hold it in position.

To center it I mark the nose piece at halfway with a pin & place it about 15mm down from top of fabric, just under where the seam allowance will end up when both sides of mask are sewn together. Its best for wearers of glasses if its a bit lower than right at the top of the mask.

Zig zag the nose piece in position, sewing right over the top of the mesh. Hopefully remember to match the thread to the fabric colour, by which I mean make sure the bobbin thread matches the fabric because I’m sewing on the the wrong side of the mask so the bobbin colour will show on the right side. That matters because reversible mask; the zig zag isnt highly noticeable on the right side

This is the rewarding bit. Two seams straight across at *roundabout 10mm seam allowance, turn it out and then boom: mask

*I typically default to foot-width seam allowances which is around 7mm by my reckoning. I’m probably wrong but thats fine with me

…you know it…

I hand stitch the ends closed having first poked a loop of elastic cord, leaving it open at the corners to allow the cord to pull through freely. This could be machine stitched (and I do this when it comes to jersey ear loops) but its difficult to sew close to the cord as the presser foot struggles over the hump. As I often record, I’m a fan of hand-stitching & like minimising machine stitching if it looks too visible. And I have the time. This is a design aesthetic thing for me and its overkill, so therefore has my name on it. Told you.

Ive made loads of simple pleated masks and Craft Passion masks and all the other patterns, and went to town on all of them. Its been a trying time & really concentrating on these has been good for me. Busy hands. Overkill, yes, but its busy hands or the Devil’s work.

The spring clamp toggles work really well, much better than I thought they would. As this mask covers across the cheeks up to the ears, the elastic is looped around the back of the neck near the hairline, rather than over one’s curved head where it always seems to slip-slide around unless you have the hairstyle for it to catch on. Without putting toggles on ear loops, this is currently my best solution to having a personally adjustable fit, rather than sewing in fixed earloops & hoping for the best with the 3-3.5-4 inch rule that I invented.

By ‘invented’ I mean this a guesstimate I came up with based on my trials, but which I then came to know is actually the measurement everyone else had already invented. If it’s too loose, I can easily pinch a bit out & take a couple of hand-stitches to secure it, but too tight & you’ve buggered it so I lean into the four inch rule to begin with. So ‘rule’ is incorrect and ‘guide’ is a better descriptor. Ive also realised that masks dont need to be tight against the face, the ear elastic just holds it in place

These are tiny tweaks (diagrams not to scale) to the Jesse mask pattern which has 24 nose-ear & nose-chin measurement combinations! (Jesse Killian is an engineer by trade, very believable). Above left is the manly bespoke and to the right, the womanly. The manly took quite a lot of trial and error as he is between sizes & required additional beard accommodation. I did a slash & spread adjustment to the front curve to begin with then subjected the subject to lots of trying on until it fit snugly. My one (to the right) is very close to Jesse’s. See below for actual accurate patterns

These images are to scale at A4 size paper, so if you save these images and print it at 100% on A4 paper, it should work. Two sizes is all we’ve needed. These are obviously not exact sciences, different fabrics yield various results but the above has been working quite well for us & I post them here because they might work well for someone else, too.

I will continue to make the current batch, about 12 masks, but after that I’m going to try a few other patterns I think. The world is bristling with them so may as well keep it interesting.

I think thin strips of jersey for ear loops are probably best in terms of long term comfort (but the head looping elastic cord with the toggle is so fly) & different jerseys have different elasticity so its all best guesstimate. That makes it dodgy when sending masks off to people elsewhere, so the toggle version can be better in that regard…not forgetting that “often, masks that tie round the back of your head are better than ear loops as they fit more tightly”. I don’t know. I just make them, send them off, sit back & wait for the applause.

I’m burning through my fabric scraps (using scraps! in a meaningful way!) and a lot of them are lightweight and loosely woven (eg linen & rayon), so I’m interfacing everything.

The first few I made were two layers of fabric only with pockets for removable filters but I found that when taking a breath, one draws in a mouthful of fabric. With the added structure from the interfacing, its more like wearing a shell & there’s room inside it for talking while also keeping it snug against the skin. Another benefit is there’s no need for a removable filter; they’re in it, interfacing is a filter, the thing is a package deal, just wash the whole thing. Woven fabric has ‘holes’ between the crisscross strands while bonded tissue, such as interfacing has very small Covid-proof pores. So humble garment interfacing has turned out to be champion Covid filter!

When mailing these off to family & friends, I have asked for feedback on the fit & comfort level; masks are going to be with us for a while & NOW is the time to work it out. I want optimise the mask fit/look/protection equation. Based on some feedbacks I am now revisiting the nose wire/mesh toss-up, it does add bulk & can be at odds with glasses.

If people are going to rely on the masks I give them, their lives are essentially my responsibility to safeguard, so again, if the fabric isn’t tightly woven…these masks end up being four layers thick, with interfacing fused on both inside and outside fabric.

The longer this situation goes on, the less extreme this becomes. Four layers is now very reasonable.

Breathability is a worry…but then is it? If it keeps out virus molecules? Just breath harder!

One issue that does bug me is heat; it gets hot inside a well fitted mask (and this is mid-winter) & I cant see a way around that yet. I am getting some super dooper filtering tissue, I dont know how stiff it will be but hopefully stiff to provide sufficient structure + protection so only three layers will be required. It’ll also save some time! It really does take hours to cut out & fuse everything.

To sum up, this is a time consuming mask to make. It is. But it is good.

Whipped some up? The author clearly doesn’t sew, or know anyone who sews. They also refer to us amateurs as “kindly women sewing face coverings out of Liberty fabric”. I’m not sure where that sits on the patronising scale of patronising…but I must admit I’ve cut into some Liberty meterage to make masks for my mother….

I wonder what will happen when we reach peak novelty mask, whereby everyone just wants plain black ones. Or black ones with Adidas logo’s. Probably that.

Lastly, my position on washing masks: if I need to wash something small (like a bra or fine fabric top) I use shampoo & handwash in the sink with warm water, rinsing it off under the tap. It's good because its detergent + softener and cleans quickly & efficiently and doesn't feel like a big deal. And it smells nice. With masks, I’d say dry them quickly & in the sun if possible. Not medical advice, but I remember reading up parenting how-to books, during my time of newborn babies, that ‘sterile cloth’ is anything thats been well ironed in the last 20 minutes. The European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control recommends washing asap after use in ‘at 60 degrees with common detergent’.

They’ll probably be fine in the machine in a laundry bag. Not medical advice but between handwashing & ironing they should be….

Again I say, there are far simpler designs to make than this, however making an object for another person with care & attention is soothing when entire countries are going to shit with infection escalation on an exponential thats pure nervous electricity mainlined via Guardian phone alerts straight to my heart.