Subtitle: Why is your face like that?!

You will recall that earlier this year I trialled several different free mask patterns, and I had some trouble finding one that the Snook deemed comfortable. We ended up just going with the ragmask for him, but it does smush his beard and leave him with unsightly Mask Face whenever he takes it off. Since then, I’ve seen several examples of BEARD MASKS, and now that my sewing machine is here (and we’re going into more lockdown), it seemed like a good time to try one.

I selected this pattern from German designer Christiane Hübner, which seemed simple enough. For fabric, I ordered a pack of paisley samples from Amazon and used those for the outer layer, with some scrap blue fabric for the interior. Feeling confident, I printed out the pattern and whipped up a pair of masks… only to run into disaster.

WTF. It’s standing way up off his nose. I was perplexed. “It’s like your ears are too high or something?” Even with a wire inserted for the nose, it refused to sit properly. It was also too long for his particular beard length, and if he lowered his chin even a little, it pushed the mask up into his eyes again. We pinched and prodded, and it seemed like maybe some additional darts in the cheek area would help?

Okay, back to the drawing board. I started by completely unpicking both masks and ironing the fabric. The easy change was to shorten the pattern by folding it up to take about an inch of length out. Then I recut the pieces for the first mask and made two additional small darts about an inch to either side of the nose. Once it was all back together, I took it down to the client for a fitting.

That’s better! The v2 mask is definitely fitting better around the nose, though there’s some pooching from the darts. It’s also a better length for the beard. Verdict: the v2 mask was deemed Acceptable.

For the other mask, I decided rather than add darts, I’d try to adjust the existing one for the nose. (The Snook doesn’t like the fabric to sit too close to his mouth.) So I kept the point in the same place but sliced the dart a bit wider…

In that photo you can see where I cut across the top dart, and where I folded it across the middle. Once this one was put together, I brought it down for another fitting…

Hey, that’s pretty good! With a wire in, it fits fairly well around the nose without the extra fabric we pinched out in v2. The dart also makes it stick out quite a bit from his mouth in a sort of beak-like shape, which he likes. Again, verdict is Acceptable.

If you want to make the same pattern, there are a couple caveats I’ll mention. In Step 4, I didn’t quite understand the instructions for attaching the nose tunnel. The descriptions just mention pinning it on, but in the subsequent photo for Step 5, you can clearly see it’s been attached. So I pinned it on and then sewed across the bottom edge. The top edge gets attached when you sew the whole thing together.

I was also slightly confused by the description for Step 9, but once you do it, it makes sense. The trick is to turn the mask inside-out, flatten the darts to either side of the chin, and then sew across. The softens that curve along the chin. You can see my version here, with my sewing line indicated in white.

Two more masks that won’t give him Mask Face! That should see him through the holidays… 😷

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.

Fu 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 Fu 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. ❤️