How to Sew Your Own Fabric Face Mask

I've read a bunch of tutorials, done some testing, and combined the best aspects of the face masks I've seen, and am here to break it all down for you. I've sent these to friends and family who are first responders, who are wearing them over their N95s, but also have made a few for my neighbors and people who I know who haven't had a chance to buy or make their own masks.

This article is great to read and keep in mind while making this mask. I personally don't have any coffee filters or anything besides fabric to add to my mask, but if you have a filter, you could layer it in between during Step 3.

I also filmed a video tutorial for DoneGood, if you want to watch any of the steps!

New to sewing? I think you should be able to keep up! Feel free to use more pins, rely more heavily on the hand wheel to sew slowly, or whatever you need.

Supplies:

• Fabric: 100% Cotton is ideal, a tighter weave as well. This colorful fabric was a thicker cotton canvas leftover from a pillow making project. I've also used denim with success, and if you don't have any fabric scraps, you can just use two pieces of the cotton jersey from the t-shirt.
• Cotton t-shirt: Have a promotional shirt you got for free but never wear? Or a shirt where the armpits may be discolored? Make sure your shirt is clean, and ideally not to worn out, so you can use it for this project!
• Tie supplies: I have used bias tape, woven ribbon, and made ties out of my fabric. Bias tape is ideal, but no worries if you don't have it! Your tie supply width should be between 1-1.5 inches, we'll go into this later.
• Thread/Bobbin: Color doesn't really matter, if it matches, great!
• OPTIONAL Paper clip & wire cutters: If you're making this to wear over an N95, your call on if the wire over the bridge of your nose will be helpful. Maybe it is ideal if you wear glasses. The pattern for this mask is already darted to fit the nose more closely, the paper clip just gives it a bit more structure.
• Iron
• Scissors

Step 1: Print & cut the pattern out

The base of my mask comes from Jessica Nandino. Her mask tutorial can be found here. Please print her pattern. 

Make sure your paper size is accurate and the sale is at 100%. ​Cut out pattern. Cut along straight black lines and dotted black line.

Step 2: Cut Your Fabric

The t-shirt material will become your lining fabric, the fabric that sits touching your face. When folding your fabric, try and keep in mind the grain of the fabric. Line up your fabric aligned with the grain. For the t-shirt, you may be able to see slight lines…try and position your pattern so that the lines you see would intersect with the notches.

Step 3: Attach Your Layers

Once both layers are cut out, give them a quick iron, and then stack them. Keep the front of the fabric facing away from you, place the t-shirt layer on top of that one. Sew the two together, following a 1/2 inch seam allowance. The t-shirt may stretch when you're doing this, no worries. You can trim any access after or just ignore it until later.

Step 4: Pleat

The pleating can be a bit confusing at first. Stick with it, try to think logically, and take your time getting the hang of it. Follow the notches on your non-stretchy fabric, AKA not the t-shirt. If they line up, you're better than me.

 Step 5: Add darts, trim sides

Step 6: Add fitted nose piece** OPTIONAL

On lighter fabric, this may be a bit too much. The wire over the nose is extremely helpful for fit, and if you wear glasses if may be a bit helpful as well.

Step 7: Adding the binding/ties

Here's where you can choose your own adventure. The first time I made these masks, I followed Jessica's tutorial and made my ties from my front fabric. If you're doing that, follow instruction A. I happened to have some soft woven ribbon from a duvet cover from West Elm that was ~3/4 inch wide, I also made one of these masks using that and instruction B will dive into that more. For this tutorial and mask, I used bias tape. Follow instruction C for bias tape.
A. Binding & Ties from Fabric:

1. You need two 40" x 1.5" pieces of fabric, plus another 1.5" wide strip about 6-10" inches long.
2. If your fabric is long enough to cut those 40" pieces, phenomenal. If not, don't fret! You can sew together two 20" pieces. You will need four 20" pieces in total to make one mask, plus that extra, shorter strip.
3. Take 2 strips and pin at 90 deg angles. Repeat with 2 more strips.4.Sew strips together at 45 deg angle.
4. Trim seams at 1/4 inch and press with iron.

B. Binding & Ties from Ribbon:

1. Just make sure your ribbon isn't the sort of ribbon that will fray, that it's comfortable as a tie and won't untie easily. The one I used was pretty soft. 
2. For the next step, just fold your ribbon over the raw edge evenly, pin in place, and sew. Keep your stitch somewhat close to the ribbon edge.

C. Binding & Ties from Bias Tape:

1. Easiest version because it cuts out the ironing necessary for the fabric ties and still gives you a very clean edge. I've been using whatever random size double fold bias tape I had passed down to me in a bag of sewing supplies and if it's too wide, cutting it in half. If it's too narrow, I've been trimming my seams lower once initially attached.

YOU DID IT! You made a fabric face mask!