Pattern Round-up: Free Face Masks

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. ❤️

Making Bella’s Hug Book

Back in January, I was checking out my Mom’s shop – The Quilt Shop at the Essenhaus in Middlebury, Indiana – when I saw she had some quilted fabric books made up for children. Each one was made from a single fabric panel that had all the directions printed right on it. Since I know lots of folks having babies, I bought four of them and brought them home. I’ve since made up two of them, and I recorded the process for Bella’s!

If you’d like to make your own, here’s one of the panels at the Quilt Shop site. (They have others that aren’t online; just get in touch and I’m sure they can help you out.) Beyond that they’re pretty basic, and the only fancy thing I did was use my new sewing machine to embroider Bella’s and my names on the back. A fun and rewarding little project! ❤️

Baratheon Pullover

Baratheon PulloverThis jumper’s been a long time in the making. Way back in 2011 I was a contributor to the TON OF WOOL project and received a couple skeins of 10ply undyed Cormo wool in return. It sat in my stash for years. Then in late 2017 I happened to see Norah Gaughan’s Stag Head Pullover on the front page of Ravelry and fell in love. I didn’t have enough of the Cormo to make it, but Jody still had a full packet and kindly sold it to me. I originally aimed to put it in the 2018 Easter Show but didn’t manage to get it finished in time. It languished in the “incomplete” basket for the better part of a year before I picked it up and finished it just in time for this year’s Show.

No ribbon, sadly, and no feedback from the judges either. Still, I’m very happy with it. Full details over on Ravelry

Making an Aloha Shirt

As you’ve no doubt gathered, I recently finished a new shirt for the Snook. I decided that I’d document the whole process in a video.

It’s not often I get to put my Film degree to use! I had a lot of fun playing with iMovie and editing this thing together. I hope you enjoy it as much as the Snook likes his new shirt!

Web-Goddess Oscar Contest 2019

A month or so ago, Christopher commented on Facebook how much he missed my annual sock monkey Oscar Contest. I admitted that I’d thought of reviving it, but I hadn’t had any inspiration for a good monkey… and then it hit me! FREDDIE MONKCURY.

Freddie Monkcury at Live Aid
Freddie Monkcury at Live Aid

I had a monkey mostly put together from a few years ago, so he took shape fairly quickly. I found a very basic pattern for doll pants in the right size and used material from an old pair of jeans. His “I Want to Break Free” outfit was a little harder. The “leather” for his skirt is actually polyurethane from a $5 bag I found at Kmart. His bouffant wig started out as sculptural felt that I then handsewed black chenille pipe cleaners onto. (I also fashioned a very basic vacuum cleaner too!)

Ready to submit your entry? Just head over to https://krishoward.org/oscars.html and register. I have a new system this year (more on that in a second) that allows you to return to update your predictions if you change your mind later. You can also see the current aggregate predictions.

Application Architecture

For the first 11 years, the Contest consisted of a custom PHP and MySQL application that I’d built. For this year, I decided to challenge myself to completely rebuild it on Amazon Web Services (which is where I work!). Here’s how the architecture ended up:

Oscar Contest Application Architecture
Oscar Contest application architecture

As a starting point, I worked through this Web Application serverless workshop. I was already using Route53 to serve krishoward.org from S3, so I decided to put the Contest files there. Upon finishing the workshop, I had a working web app using Amazon Cognito for user authentication and a serverless backend consisting of an API Gateway-fronted Lambda function that writes data to DynamoDB.

The next step was to customise it! After I changed the images and CSS to my own branding, the next thing to change was the data saved to the database – I changed it to a form with all the Oscar categories and nominees. Next, I wanted users to be able to review and update their votes, so I added another Lambda function that retrieves a logged-in user’s votes so the form can be populated correctly. I then added a third Lambda function that scans the complete database, processes the votes, and publishes an aggregate JSON file to S3. (This is triggered whenever the DynamoDB table is updated.) For actually displaying the prediction graphs, I used ChartJS.

I think that covers everything! Please have a go and let me know if you encounter any issues. Many thanks to the Snook (my rubber duck and eternal programming mentor) as well as David, Jody, and Amy for their help with testing.

I’m stupidly proud of this promo image.

Frocktober 2018 – Sewing Update 5

When last I left off, you’ll recall I had assembled the bodice and front skirt of my Hawaiian dress. Since then, I’ve snatched bits and pieces of sewing time whenever I’m able. I was soon able to finish off the complete outer shell and try it on.

Fitting

I discovered quite a bit of fabric pooling at my lower back. (Note to self: I think I need to start doing swayback adjustments going forward.) I had the Snook help me by pinning out the excess. I was able to then undo the seam and move it to remove the extra fabric. Then I made a note of the measurements so I could do the same on the lining pieces.

Oh right, the lining. Then I basically had to recreate the entire dress again. I had to cut out all the pieces on the bias, hang them, press them, and assemble the dress. Here’s the bodice in progress.

I also sewed together a neck facing out of my outer fabric. This was then pinned on top of the lining so that you wouldn’t see the white peeking out at the neckline. Here’s what it looked like on the inside before I sewed it down.

Then I inserted the lining, making sure the right side of the shell was next to the right side of the lining. Once I sewed them together at the neckline, I was able to flip it inside out so that the lining is inside and all seams are neatly trapped between. That v-neck was tricky though, and I had to unpick it a few times to get it to lie flat. (It’s still not perfect but it’ll do.)

The next step was to prepare the sleeves. Each cap has a bit of a puff at the top so I sewed basting stitches so I could gather them to fit. Here’s what it looked like once I had the sleeve pinned in place.

Yeah, I use a lot of pins.

Then I sewed in the sleeves and finished the seam. By the way, I found it weird that the pattern didn’t tell me explicitly to finish any of the seams. Not all of them (like the sleeves) are under the lining. I even went back and overlocked the skirt seams just because I was paranoid about fraying. Then I hemmed the sleeves.

And here’s what it looks like right now. All that’s left is to straighten up the bottom and hem it!

Montrose Top

I think this is my fastest sewing project yet! This is the Montrose Top from Cashmerette, and I whipped this up in about 4 hours today.

The fabric is Liberty Saville Poplin in a lavender print that I bought at The Fabric Store during their last sale. (Savvy blog readers will notice that I used it for the Snook’s most recent Simon Shirt. I deliberately bought enough so I’d be able to make something simple for myself too!) The only real design feature on the garment is a curved and gathered back yoke, which was pretty simple to do.

In terms of sizing, the pattern offers 9 different sizes, 3 different cups, and 2 different sleeves, so it’s suitable for pretty much everybody! I cut a straight 20 C/D, and it’s comfortably roomy. (I might go down to an 18 next time.) This is definitely the best sleeve fit I’ve ever had on a garment I’ve made for me. I made one alteration to lengthen the front and back, just based on the fact that the pattern was written for someone who’s 5’6″. I’m closer to 5’10” but I’m also short-waisted, so I decided to add in 2″. However, when I tried it on it was still too long, so I ended up chopping that length off and rehemming. Next time I’ll go back to the original length.

I can see myself making these in lots of different colours. Just a great little wardrobe staple! I reckon I like it even better than the Colette Sorbetto…

Colette Iris Shorts

I realised today as I was wearing my fancy handmade Colette Iris denim shorts that I had intended to blog the whole process for you back in February. Whoops! Better late than never.

These were my fifth iteration of the shorts, and I’m extremely happy with how they turned out – especially since the 1st and 2nd versions weren’t even wearable! Over the course of refining the previous versions, I ended up adding some room to the butt, lowering the crotch, and then scooping out the front seam a little. I also added custom piping (which I blogged about here) to both edges of the waistband.

Here’s what I used to make these shorts:

You don’t actually need all of this stuff. For sewing supplies, all you really need is a good pair of scissors, some pins, a ruler, and something to mark your fabric. I have a fancy cutting mat and rotary cutter, and I sometimes use carbon paper to transfer markings. My sewing machine is an old (nearly 20 years, I think?) Janome that I’ve had serviced once or twice. It doesn’t have all the bells and whistles but it does the job. For this project, I used denim needles which are a bit stronger than normal ones (since denim is thicker to punch through). I also have a very basic Janome overlocker that I bought at Aldi a few years back, but that’s optional too. (You can just zig-zag your seams with your regular machine.) You’ll also need the pattern, of course, cut out in your chosen size. For fabric, I used 100% cotton denim I bought at The Fabric Store as well as some leftover Liberty Clarks Canvas for the pockets and piping. You also need some iron-on interfacing.

Let’s get started! I began by laying out my front and back pattern pieces on my pre-washed fabric.

I used my clear ruler to make sure the grain lines on the pattern pieces were parallel to the fabric edge.

I used my rotary cutter to cut out the pieces, but you can also use scissors if you prefer. (You’ll probably want some sort of pattern weights to keep your pieces from moving around. I don’t have special ones; I just use my rulers and whatever desk supplies are lying around.)

Next I transferred the markings from the pieces. For notches, I just made tiny snips into the edge of the fabric.

For darts, I used my carbon paper and tracing wheel to transfer them. I folded the paper in half (right side out) and slipped it between the layers, which means I could transfer to both pieces at once.

For marked dots (like for pocket placement), I poked a hole in the pattern and then used a special marker for marking on dark fabrics. It leaves a white dot that’s very visible! You can also use chalk for this.

Just to show you a more lo-fi method of cutting out pieces, for the waistband I traced the pieces using chalk and cut them out with scissors. These are cut “on the fold” so each pattern piece is only half the size of the resulting fabric piece. (To maximise fabric usage, I flipped the front waistband pieces over so they nested better and resulted in less waste.)

I also cut all of my pockets out of my lining fabric.

The last bit of cutting was to cut the waistband pieces out of iron-on interfacing.

And it was finally time to start sewing! The first task is staystitching, which I hate because it’s boring. I had to sew lines of stitching along the top and bottom edges of all four waistband pieces to stabilise them and keep them from stretching. I also had to staystitch at the waist edge of the shorts pieces.

Next I had to iron on the interfacing to two of the waistband pieces. (I used a damp tea towel as a pressing cloth for this.)

Next it was time to sew the darts! I put a pin at the point of the dart and then folded them to bring the legs together. I sewed from the top to the tip, shortening my stitch length as I got closer to the tip. (I normally sew at 2.5 length; by the time I get to the tip I’m as short as my machine will go.) Then I knotted the tails and trimmed them off. I ironed the darts towards the center.

The next task was to finish the edges of the pockets, which I did with my overlocker. (You could also zigzag these with a sewing machine.)

Next, I lined up the pockets with the marked dots on the side of each piece and pinned them in place. I sewed them down (with a smaller seam allowance than normal), then finished this entire edge with my overlocker. Then I ironed the pockets so they flipped away from the piece.

The next job was to sew the front pieces together to finish the pocket openings. I lined up the pieces and pinned them together. I sewed from the waistband down to the leg (with a normal 5/8″ seam allowance), pivoting 90 degrees to sew around the pocket pieces as I went. Then I ironed the seam, pressing the pockets towards the center. You can just see the pocket fabric peeking out!

Time to sew the crotch! I joined up each front piece with its corresponding back piece and pinned the short inside leg seam. I sewed the seam, then overlocked each side of the seam allowance separately so I could iron it open.

Next, I lined up the two halves of the shorts and pinned the crotch seam from front waist to back waist. After sewing this seam, I cut into the seam allowance along the curved bits to allow it open up. Then I overlocked each side of the seam allowance separately and pressed it open.

It was finally starting to look like a pair of shorts!

I turned them inside out and pinned the right side seam together. (The left side is left open since it will have the zipper in it.) Then I sewed the seam, overlocked the edges, and pressed it open.

Before I could insert the zipper, I had to attach the waistband. I sewed the interfaced bands together at the right side. Because the non-interfaced waistband is on the inside, I had to sew the left side for that one. (Takes you a while to get your brain around the geometry, I know.) I finished the edges and pressed them open.

Here’s the point where I deviated from the pattern to add my piping! I pinned it to the top and bottom of the interfaced waistband piece, making sure to place it 5/8″ from the edge so it would just poke out from my eventual seams. I sewed it down using a zipper foot (which only has one prong and allowed me to sew very close up to the edge of the piping).

Next, I pinned the interfaced waistband piece to the top of the shorts and sewed it down. Again, I used my zipper foot so I could get close up to the piping (which was sandwiched in between the pieces). Then I ironed the seam towards the waistband.

It was time to install the zipper. Rather than walk through all the steps, I’ll just direct you to Colette’s excellent tutorial. I refer to it every time I have to insert one! Pro tip: It helps a lot to have an invisible zipper foot, which has special channels that your zipper teeth travel through. It allows you to get very close to the zipper!

Once the zipper was in, I pinned the remainder of the left side seam. Then I sewed it, making sure to overlap a bit past the point where the zipper ended. This is where I made my one mistake of the project: I should have overlocked these edges before putting in the zipper! I managed to do it after the fact, but it was a little messier than it could have been. Then I pressed the seam open.

Attaching the waistband facing is really counterintuitive and weird, so you just have to follow the pattern instructions and trust that it will turn out! I started by turning up the bottom edge 5/8″ and pressing it in place. Then I opened the zipper and flipped out the seam allowances. I aligned the waistband facing to these edges and sewed them down as close to the zipper teeth as I could get.

Then Colette has you do something really weird: you turn the zipper away from the opening again. Then I stitched down all along the top of the waistband, sewing slowly over the zipper and using my zipper foot to get as close to the piping as I could. Then I trimmed down the seam allowance at the corner and graded it down all along the seam. Then I flipped the facing away from the seam and understitched it as far as  I could (meaning I sewed the seam allowance to the facing along the edge of the piping – it’s supposed to make sure the waistband rolls to the inside).

The final waistband steps were to turn out the waistband completely and poke out the corners, give it a good press, then hand baste down the folded facing edge on the inside. Then I edge stitched on the outside of the garment along the piping to make sure the facing was caught and sewn down securely.

And the final, FINAL step was to hem the legs of the shorts. I folded them up twice and pressed, then sewed down the hem. And they were finished!

I hope that gives you an idea of the amount of work that goes into a single garment. I think there’s a perception that sewing your own clothes saves money. It really, really doesn’t. Think of it this way: all up, these took me about 7 hrs over the course of two days. (That includes an hour to make my own bias binding and piping though.) At current Australian minimum wage of $18.29, that means there’s well over $100 worth of my labour in these. The cost of materials would push that even higher.

Now think about how much you might pay for a pair of denim shorts in a shop. I’m guessing it’s a lot less! (And no, it’s not solely due to automation. Sewing clothes is still a largely manual process, as robots can’t yet handle textiles very well.) Someone got paid to make your clothes, and they probably got very little for it and worked in very crappy conditions. No, I haven’t stopped buying clothes in shops yet. But making my own things makes me more appreciative of the work that goes into it, and less willing to shop at the “fast and disposable” fashion places these days.

Plus they look really cute! 🙂

Summer of Shorts!

I realised back in December that my wardrobe was pretty light on shorts and set out to rectify that. I ended up making FIVE different pairs from two different patterns, and I’m pretty happy with how they turned out!

These three pairs are all based on Colette Patterns Iris Shorts. They’re sort of retro, with pockets set into a front seam rather than on the hips. They open with a zipper on the left side. I bought this pattern years ago and made a first attempt at them, but they didn’t fit at all and I was too disheartened to try again. This time I was determined to crack it.

This was my first attempt. I didn’t want to use anything too fancy until I had fixed the fit issues so I used this blue floral quilting cotton I had in my stash. My first attempt was again a complete disaster, so I ended up pulling them apart and recutting the bum pieces to add more width to accommodate my hips. That seemed to do the trick! Wearable, but not perfect.

For my second attempt, I made further adjustments. The blue pair felt like they were, uh, riding a bit high, so I lowered the crotch by half an inch on both the front and back pieces. (The first adjustment detailed on this page.) For this pair, I used a pink fine-wale corduroy I bought from Jody‘s Mum’s destash. I didn’t have much of it, which turned out to be problematic when I screwed up the cutting and had to recut one of the front panels. There’s definitely some bodgy bits around the pockets on these, but overall the adjustment was a success. The fit is relaxed and comfortable!

The last pair were just finished today. These are made from a beautiful denim that I picked up during The Fabric Store‘s recent sale. I made one final adjustment to the fit, to “scoop out” a little more of the front crotch and remove a little excess fabric there. I decided to get a bit fancy with these and apply piping to the top and bottom of the waistband. I used some beautiful Liberty cotton canvas for the piping and the pockets, and I’m so happy how they turned out! (I also documented the whole process of making them, which I’ll be posting soon.)

The other two pairs of shorts I made were from the Prefontaine Shorts pattern by thatmoxiegirl. I ❤ this pattern!

This pattern is a roomy cut and features very inclusive sizing, so I didn’t have to make a single change. These were the first pair I made, which used some quilting cotton I’ve been holding on to for years, waiting for just the right project. I’m slightly annoyed that I wasn’t smart enough to vary the placement across the fronts to avoid the obvious repetition across the crotch seam, but it’s fine. The waist is elastic so you don’t have to bother with putting in a zipper. The black trim along the edges is actually recycled from an old t-shirt! That’s a trick that the pattern suggests, and it’s brilliant. Since it’s a knit it goes around the curves easily without needing special bias tape, and it feels great against your skin.

My second pair turned out so, so well. As soon as I saw this Liberty Meandering Chrysanthemums cotton canvas at The Fabric Store’s sale, I fell in love and immediately knew it was destined for these shorts. The dusty pink trim is again from an old t-shirt.

For this pair, I also added welt pockets on the back. They’re a perfect size for my cell phone!

I cannot tell you how satisfying it is to make your own clothes! It’s getting to the point now where Rodd and I will both be wearing garments that I’ve made, out in public or to work or whatever, and nobody knows that there’s actually no label inside. Hm. Maybe I should get my own labels, huh?

The “Knitted” Laurel Dress

As you may have picked up on yesterday, I made yet another Colette Laurel dress for Frocktober! I used the same mods as the Big Data dress: sleeveless, notched neckline, and pockets. On this one, I moved the pockets outwards slightly as they felt too close together. I also cut the back in one piece rather than having a waist seam.

The fabric is called Breeze by Rosemarie Lavin for Windham Fabrics. It’s actually a quilting cotton that I picked up at Morris & Sons earlier in the year. I bought it on a lark, mostly because it’s printed to look like knitting! I thought I’d make a simple blouse out of it, so I only bought 2m of fabric. Unfortunately that was barely enough to make this dress, so I’ll have to wear shorts under it for modesty. Still – cute dress for a hot day!