I’ve always enjoyed sewing and being in need of another face covering I decided to make my own. There a numerous tutorials in both video and blog form so this won’t be a tutorial as such, but rather explaining how I took existing instructions and made them suit my needs.
Anyone who has watched The Great British Sewing Bee (I highly recommend!) will be familiar with judge Esme Young. I decided to start with her tutorial – find the video on YouTube here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t3nxqZ9sVfQ
I took her suggested measurements and created a rectangle pattern. I then cut four pieces of black cotton to the pattern. I had some spare cotton lying around from a previous project I did a few years ago. The weave was not very tight hence why I chose to make four layers for the mask. This would make the face covering more effective, and therefore safer.
It was all going fairly well, I chose to hand sew the material as I enjoy hand sewing but using a machine would be significantly faster! Hand sewing did provide greater control over the darts though. I placed one dart under the chin so the material wraps around my face closely, and added some pleats at each side to give a snug fit. I then decided to be artistic and make life harder for myself by creating my own straps out of matching material. Elastic would have worked just fine!
Eventually it all came together. It fits me much better than some of the ‘one size fits all’ (or ‘one size fits none’!), and I had the satisfaction of making it myself! I am intending to make another so I don’t have to plan washing them with when I want to leave the house. Unfortunately, everywhere seems to be out of my desired fabric. Oh well, at least it shows people are taking up more hobbies!
Holly Royle 
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