Staying in this Autumn suddenly got a whole lot comfier…
Woot, my knee-jerk don’t-overthink-it pub-quiz answer was Iran which seems to be [✓]. I ‘knew’ it was more populous than…
Perfect Pan Pizza, homemade by the Snook! (Recipe from @kenjilopezalt at @seriouseats.) ❤️🍕
RT @MelissaLDavey: Victorian premier Daniel Andrews has issued this statement: https://t.co/U2dVwSvDiU
RT @chlosephine_: jane austen understood that nothing is sexier than standing seven feet away from someone, making brief eye contact, and t…
@LeenaVanD You are literally the only person I’ve seen who’s played it who didn’t love it. I find this fascinating. (I haven’t played it. It looks… kinda weird.)
RT @BugHunterSam: If you are in an online chat group and someone addresses the room with, “Hi Guys”, I created this meme you can use to res…
@chrisgander My friend, as much as it pains me – a diehard Pacey & Joey shipper from way back – to say, have you actually watched Dawson’s Creek lately? It…. doesn’t hold up.
Definitely Buffy, Veronica Mars… and I’m gonna go with Gossip Girl for pure entertainment value. (Can I move Pacey to one of the other shows??) @JennaGuillaume https://t.co/waM9C9JEOT
@JennaGuillaume My husband and I have now spent 15 minutes arguing over this. Highlight of my day.
@chrisgander Hey, not arguing that the fanvids and fanfics aren’t good! But the actual show… garbage.
@chrisgander Also, Rodd just saw me watching that and rolled his eyes, and I had to explain that a GROWN-ASS MAN WITH CHILDREN sent it to me.
RT @PaisleyMuseum: BBC Scotland’s documentary “The Town that Thread Built” is availible on the iPlayer until April 21st. Well worth a watch…
RT @drphiliplee1: Remember how almost this time last year, Chernobyl came out on HBO/Sky and everyone thought how horrific the empty street…
@cbetta Looks delicious!! 👏
RT @TheresaNeate: In collaboration with the @ministryoftest, we have just released the on-demand workshop “Hands-on Intro to AWS and a Tast…
@indefensible Wasn’t the original by Barry Manilow?
Kristine Howard shared a link.
Suddenly craving comfort food, so thanks to the @ausmeatemporium for delivering a giant box of meat destined for the slow cooker!
Suddenly craving comfort food, so thanks to the @ausmeatemporium for delivering a giant box of meat destined for the slow cooker!
RT @tobyhede: If you’re feeling confined, at least know it’s having an effect. https://t.co/oUm3D7vjK3
Tempted to photoshop James Bond into that circle in the middle. https://t.co/1dkWsD4ldu
RT @DaveedDiggs: Thanks for putting the band back together @johnkrasinski https://t.co/FFGfFDVHOo https://t.co/5UTw3aJwp5
RT @voidrantsback: Don’t let Scott Morrison take credit for Australians flattening the curve. We were self-isolating and working from home…
Testing another mask pattern. This is the Olson Mask from @makerhealthco. Has a pocket for a filter and fits over the ears with hair ties! 🐵 https://t.co/uFBzGZoQEQ
Another mask – this one the Ragmask from ragmask. Very quick and dirty, but also quite beaklike. I like the wire formed over the nose… https://t.co/aXhMk0OaNO
Blog post! Pattern Round-up: Free Face Masks. In which I compare easy of construction, fit, and comfort for three mask patterns from @freesewing_org, @makerhealthco, and @ragmaskedbandit. (Spoiler: we have very different head shapes.) https://t.co/Dr6PIfppiS https://t.co/E9u6qsUmz6
@cczona @ragmaskedbandit Oooh, this a fantastic idea!
RT @web_goddess: Blog post! Pattern Round-up: Free Face Masks. In which I compare easy of construction, fit, and comfort for three mask pat…
RT @carlfish: Today, George R. R. Martin, citing “twenty-five years of accumulated narrative debt” announced that he has begun the process…
@chixors Brilliant! I will definitely do that. What pattern are you using??
Testing another mask pattern. This is the Olson Mask from @makerhealth. Has a pocket for a filter and fits over the ears with hair ties! 🐵
Another mask – this one the Ragmask from @ragmask. Very quick and dirty, but also quite beaklike. I like the wire formed over the nose…
Blog post! Pattern Round-up: Free Face Masks. In which I compare easy of construction, fit, and comfort for three mask patterns from Freesewing, Maker Health, and Ragmask. (Spoiler: the Snook and I have very different head shapes.)
Now that the CDC is officially recommending cloth face coverings to help control the spread of novel coronavirus, a bounty of free sewing patterns has cropped up for them online. I decided to try out a few of the free ones to compare ease-of-sewing, fit, and comfort. (There are also plenty of no-sew options too, but just remember that knitted fabrics like t-shirts have huge holes and are less effective than a tightly woven fabric like quilting cotton.)
Test subjects
For these experiments, I’m testing fit and comfort on both myself and the Snook. Our head circumference is the same: 58.5cm / 23in. However, our head shape is very different as you can see from the profiles below. My maternal grandmother is Korean, and my face is wider and flatter with a relatively small nose. The Snook is of Italian and Welsh heritage, and he has — as he puts it — “a man nose.” He also wears spectacles, whereas I mostly wear contact lenses in public. I’ve got lots of hair; he doesn’t… but he does have a beard.
Florence Face Mask from Freesewing
Freesewing is a super cool website where you can upload your measurements and generate completely custom-fit PDF patterns from it. I’ve used it in the past to make two shirts for the Snook. The creator Joost added the Florence Face Mask on March 1 and I bookmarked it right away. The only measurement it uses is your head circumference, and there’s only a single pattern piece to cut.
This was very, very quick to make up. I used two pieces of quilting cotton — the black novelty fabric on the outside, and a plain white for the lining. The straps are made up of some cotton webbing I had in my stash. I liked the neat method of attaching the straps so you don’t have any raw edges exposed, and the topstitching makes it nice. This has no inner filter (just the two layers of cotton), so it’s fairly light and easy to breathe through.
In terms of fit, the face part of this one fits me great. It does, however, make me feel like Shredder from the Ninja Turtles. I’m not a huge fan of ribbon ties though, as they tend to slip down my big round head and mess up my hair. (You can see that it’s already falling down and smooshing the top of my ear.) However, this one didn’t fit the Snook at all, and he said he felt like he needed more room for his nose. It just didn’t fit tightly around his face.
Olson Face Mask from Maker Health
I spotted this mask on Kelly Ferguson’s Instagram and she kindly pointed me to the pattern, which is from Maker Health. It comes in both adult and kids’ sizes, and what’s really cool is that it has a sort of pocket where you can insert a filter.
I was surprised when I printed this out to see it involves a full six pattern pieces. However, upon inspection I realised they’d just mirrored them for the two sides, so you can get away with printing just a single piece for the face, cheek, and mouth. (Basically – two pages instead of four. Either fold your fabric before cutting or flip the piece over before you cut the second one. Save some trees!) I used three different quilting cottons for this one: the sock monkey print for the outside, and two solid colours for the inside. This one took the longest to put together, just because you have to hem the overlapping pieces for the inside pocket. That said, it’s still pretty easy. Instead of ribbons, this one uses hair elastics that you secure over your ears.
The Olson Mask fit on my face is very similar to the Fu Mask, and I find it very comfortable to wear. I wasn’t sure about the hair elastics, but they’re awesome. They hold it just right and it doesn’t screw up my hair! However, the Snook had much the same fit problems with this one as he did with the previous. It just isn’t fitting flush to his face around his nose at all. Additionally, the elastics I used are too small for his ears (?!) so he didn’t enjoy wearing it.
Ragmask from Jean Whitehead, Matt Gardner, and Loren Brichter
I saw Ragmask linked somewhere recently and loved the lo-fi concept. This isn’t fancy; it’s about churning out masks as quickly as you can. There’s only one size and one pattern piece.
True to the website, Ragmask is optimised for speed of construction. The aim isn’t perfection but rather “good enough.” I used a single piece of quilting cotton (which gets folded over double) along with a piece of fairly stiff interfacing as the “filter.” The seam down the middle is left raw on the inside, as is the bottom edge along your chin. I used some salvaged ribbon for the ties. The really ingenious bit of this design is that you create a channel that you feed a bit of wire into, and you then form that around your nose. (I used a bit of plastic coated clothes hanger.) That creates a much tighter seal around the nose. It will, however, create trouble when you go to wash it, as you’ll have to remove the wire or it’ll rust. (Their Twitter mentions working on a version to make this easier.)
Because I put the interfacing in this one, it made it fairly stiff and “beak-like.” That’s nice when you’re wearing it, as it stands away from your mouth a bit. The fit on this one is okay for me, but I just don’t enjoy the ribbons/ties around the head. The perfectionist in me is also slightly offended by raw edges, even though I get why it is. That said, this one was the Snook’s favourite! It actually fit nicely around his nose (under his specs) and all the way under his chin.
Final verdict
Look, this is all down to the size, shape, and weirdness of your own head and what you feel comfortable in. All of these are easy to make and do the job. Because I like the elastic over the ears better than ties, I’m going to be making more of the Olson Masks for me. (I’ve also just had an idea that should allow me to add an easily removable nose wire to the Olson to make it fit even better!) And because of his “man nose,” I’ll be making more of the Ragmasks for the Snook. Whatever you do, please stay home as much as you can and stay safe. ❤️
Road testing different sew-at-home face mask patterns. First up – @freesewing_org’s Fu Mask. It makes me feel like Shredder from the Ninja Turtles movie. (Full blog post coming about all masks later in the week…) https://t.co/OkUfdcDx4K https://t.co/9LG98MgBx4
@amitchell01 Actually the crafters are all doing great!! It’s the rest of you muggles who are probably climbing the walls. 😂
RT @flanaganagain_: I admit I did not have COBOL programmer shortage on my end-times bingo card. https://t.co/ick5JhlpHo
RT @wikkit: Some German words you might find useful now:
Fernweh: the opposite of homesickness, a longing to be elsewhere
Kummerspeck: grie…
Road testing different sew-at-home face mask patterns. First up – @freesewing_org’s Fu Mask. It makes me feel like Shredder from the Ninja Turtles movie. (Full blog post coming about all masks later in the week…)
My name is Kris. I’ve been blogging since the 90’s. I live in Sydney, Australia, and I spent most of my career in the tech industry.
No AI used in writing this blog, ever. 100% human-generated.
Woot, my knee-jerk don’t-overthink-it pub-quiz answer was Iran which seems to be [✓]. I ‘knew’ it was more populous than…
Congrats and to many more 🙌🏽
My home economics teacher taught us to use “J cloths” as press cloths. (Cellulose cleaning cloths). The upside of using…
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