I have been sewing face masks since April, 2020. I started with the rectangular mask with pleats that attached behind the ears with elastic.
As the months went by I realized that sometimes the elastic on my ears drove me crazy. Or, there was a bagginess around my chin or my glasses fogged up and I couldn’t see the item on the grocery shelves, if indeed it was actually there.
So, I have perused YOUTUBE for sewing templates. I tried several but have decided on one for now although I added my own twist of having adjustable elastic straps that do not go around my ears but over the crown of my head and around my neck leaving my 75-year-old Star Trek ears free. The template I used had elastic around the head and neck rather than the ears but it was not adjustable. I needed adjustable because if I’ve learned anything these past few months, human heads vary outside and inside. I tried at first using cords rather than elastic but realized that getting it on and off was going to be a hassle. If masks are a hassle, people don’t wear them. I don’t want to give them a ready-made excuse. So, the final product requires twice as much elastic as my original rectangular ones, an adjustment “barrel” that attaches to the elastic ends and moves up or down to adjust the size. For those who wear glasses, I also sew into the nose bridge a flexible metal wire.
Here’s a little movie I made about them. I’m wearing a Ruth Bader Ginsburg Protest collar designed by the artist, Stephanie Syjuco that she allowed anyone to download for FREE. I swear to you that visual artists and books have gotten me through these past seven months. It certainly hasn’t been my social skills because, in February 2020, my family celebrated my 75th birthday with a wall poster that was titled, “75 Things We Love about Pappy.” After seven months of my lockdown and being the COVID family police? I’m down to about 24 things and that’s only if they remember I used to bake a variety of cookies and make a chocolate sauce for ice cream or cocoa. Anyway, here’s my face mask update.
