Anyway, as part of a little goody bag to say thank you we included one of these lovelies. They are perfect for travelling, trying to sleep on trains and planes and suchlike! They are also perfect for a mid-afternoon nap while the sun still shines, long Sunday lie-ins or any other time you feel like a sneaky spot of shut-eye!
So first up, the ingredients:
1. fun fabrics - we found a bunch of fun fat quarters in the local fabric shop
2. thin knicker elastic - yeay!!!! I have finally found a project that actually uses my namesake diy ingredient. It was worth it just for that.
3. matching threads to your selected fabrics
4. template for the mask - we made this through trial and error or you could use a template from an existing mask if you already have one! If you like it to be pitch black then make it big!
5. fabric scissors
6. pins and needles
7. and not pictured here, we also used some sheet wadding, medium to thin depending on how padded you want the face mask. The more padding the more comfy! :)
Step one is to take the template and cut out the front of your mask in your funky fabric. Secondly do the same with the backing fabric and then finally in the wadding.
Combine the three layers with the front and back of the mask with the corrects sides facing each other. We'll be turning it inside out after sewing. This is a little tricky to get right, but with some sound logic or just trial and error I got there in the end!
Next to make the strap - cut out a strip about 1.5 inches wide and almost twice as long as you need the strap. Mine was about 25-30 cms. Fold it over onto itself and pin down the lenth.
To create the strap we just need a straight line stitched along the joined side of the strip of fabric as per in step 7. Then turn it inside out until you have a long tube of fabric.
Step 8 - attach a safety pin to the end of your knicker elastic and slowly work it through the tube of fabric. Measure out how much elastic you need - depends on how big your head is and how tight you want it! Mine ended up being about 12-14cms long.
Once you have the elastic poking out either end of the tube of fabric and the strap is nicely ruched along it's length I did a straight line stitch across each end to keep the elastic in place and you end up with step 9!
Take your stack of three mask shapes and slot in the end of the strap into either side - it will be coming from the inside to the outside, so the opposite of what you'll finally want once it's turned inside out.
Then as per step 10 we do a straight stitch all the way round the outside of the mask being sure to capture each of the three layers plus the strap as we go around. Leaving a small gap of about 4cms for us to turn it inside out through.
Prior to this I did a little trimming of stray threads etc and at the bridge of the nose point I cut in a few incisions in the excess fabric so that it'd be more flexible and go round the corner more smoothly.
Finally turn it inside out and you'll need to hand stitch up the small hole that's remaining, but it really is pip-squeek! And then there you have it, your very own floral face mask.
What we also added to some of the final masks was a contrast binding around the outside. This was done with matching or contrasting binding tape that's on the bias and so perfect for going around corners! :) But no need to stop there, you can embellish these in any way you see fit!
For some reason, wearing three at a time turns out to be a lot more fun that wearing just the one. So if you're on a roll, well simply keep on going! :)
Night night dreamers! Zzzzzzzz
