How to Make a Three Layers Cloth Mask cum Mask Cover

The key transmission route of Covid-19 is via droplets that fly out of our mouth when we speak, cough, or sneeze. So, everybody looks for masks since Covid-19 breakout and leads to a short supply in the market, especially the disposable 3-ply surgical masks. Therefore many people start looking for cloth masks or masks covers. Although we know that a cloth mask is not meant to replace the surgical face mask, it is better than none.
     I read an article a few days ago, it mentioned that the best cloth masks were constructed of two layers of heavyweight "quilters cotton" with a thicker and tighter weave and had a thread count of at least 180. It also stated, in other words, if the fabric allowed for a substantial amount of light to shine through, it was probably going to allow tiny viral particles through as well. 
     Since I have some quilters cotton in hand, I decide to make some cloth masks for my family members. I don't know the thread count of my cloth but there is not much light that can shine through. I think it should be all right. This is a 3 layers cloth mask cum mask cover, it features an opening at the top, you can insert a piece of liner, or unwoven fabric into the mask for added protection.
      A face mask is a precaution that we can take to help slow the spread of Covid-19 but it is not a substitute for physical distancing and other prevention methods.



Materials:
1. A piece of cotton fabric 21cm x 53cm
2. Two pieces of elastic string approximately 17cm
3. A piece of copper wire approximately 12cm

Make a 1.5cm double-fold hem at one of the short edges. So, fold your fabric towards the wrong side by approximately 1.5cm two times. Press the hem and pin it in place. Then, make a 0.5cm double-fold hem at the other short edge. You can either fold the fabric towards the wrong side or right side at this step. Press the hem in place and sew the hem. By referring to the picture on the right-hand side, place your fabric wrong side up, make a partial fold on the fabric by picking up the narrow hem and pull towards the large hem until you form a 31.5cm rectangle, and pin it in place.

Place the fabric right side up. Draw two sets of parallel lines with fabric chalk or water-soluble marking tool as shown in the picture. Start drawing the nine blue lines from left to right and nine pink lines from right to left. The short distance between two parallel lines is 1.4cm. It should be ten pink lines that I need to draw but it seems more difficult for me to explain the measurement here... (it should be one more parallel line at the 3cm space.) Don't worry, it won't be a problem when you make the last pleat. Now, pleat the fabric along sides. Pinch the fabric up so the line with "v" mark is at the top of the fold, fold towards the third line at the right-hand side and pin it. One pleat is finished. Repeat the steps to finish all the six pleats.

You should have six pleats in the same direction. Sew the pleats in place. You will find that the pleats on the partial folded part relatively thick.

Fold the fabric in half with the right sides together, sew the edges on either side where I mark with the blue lines. The part with the opening will be the top of the mask.

Sandwich the elastic string into the side opening and pin both ends at the bottom and the top of the mask respectively. Sew a 0.5cm seam to close the opening. Repeat the step to the other side opening.

Turn the mask right side out and topstitch a 0.5cm seam at both short edges. If you don't need a nose wire for your mask, a simple mask is done at this step. If you need a nose wire for more comfortable and secure, please go to the next step.

The picture on the left-hand side is a nose wire, remember to bend over the sharp ends before you insert it into the mask layers. After that, insert the wire to the very top of the front layer (the double layer) of the mask. Sew the 3 sides as shown in the picture to keep the wire in place. The room for the wire should be slightly bigger than your wire.


Finally, I hope all people around the world are keeping well during this extremely challenging time. Together we can win the war against Covid-19!!

Hanging Ornament

 

Want to adorn, beautify or decorate your bag, pencil box, key chain, purse or anything that looks dull or monotonous? Do you believe a unique handmade hanging ornament would be a special enhancement that could relieve the plainness and monotony of an object or background? These hanging ornaments are my unique designs. I like retro ancient bronze ornaments, so I choose some bronzed plated mini beads and charms before I start making these ornaments. The black agate bead is the major structure for this bronzed series. The bead size is 14mm, it is a perfect size for my designs.

It is very easy to make this kind of hanging ornament. The materials you will need are fine cord, beads, charms, jump rings and raw chain. No special skill is required, I believe you also could make it, as long as you know how to make a simple knot, arrange the beads and charm onto the cord with your own idea.

 The hanging ornament relieve the plainness of my simple bag.😄

How to Sew a Lined Zipper Pouch

Hello, happy Thursday! Let's go through the steps below to make a lined zipper pouch. I am using cotton linen as the outer fabric and the plain lining fabric as the inner fabric in this project. Is it looks nice?


Materials:
1. Two pieces of  11" x 7" Outer fabric 
2. Two pieces of 11" x 7" Lining fabric
3. One piece of  2" x 9" Outer fabric
4. One piece of 2" x 3" Outer fabric
5. One piece of 11" zipper

These are the fabric pieces and zipper that we will need to sew a zipper fabric pouch. The 11" x 7" pieces are including 1/2 inch seam allowance at each edge.

The first step is to cover the tail of the zipper by using the 2" x 3" outer fabric piece. Fold it in half crosswise and press to create a crease. Open up the fabric with the right side facing up, fold the two short sides to the center crease one by one and fold again the center crease to create a cover. Tuck the tail of the zipper inside and topstitching the cover in place. Then, trim the excess fabric on the raw edges of the cover.

The second step, place the 11" x 7" lining and outer fabric right sides together with the top edges aligned properly. Sandwich the zipper along the top edges. Place the tail of the zipper about 1mm or 2mm inwards from the vertical seam line so you won't sew through the tail when you join the body pieces together in the next step and the tail can stay neater once you turn it out. And you will find that it is placed slightly away from the top edges of the fabric, I do so because I want the seam line to be sat on a distance of 1/5inch (5mm) away from the zipper teeth and I can easily stitch the zipper on by following the seam line.

Once you have pinned the pieces properly, change the presser foot to the zipper foot if you are using the sewing machine. Sewing from the tail of the zipper by following the seam line. Keep sewing all the way down the zipper until you are about one inch from the end (or about 1/2 inch from the seam line). Keep your needle down in the fabric and then lift the zipper foot. Now, unzip the zipper until the pull tab moved to the behind of the foot. Pull the zipper tape where the needle still down towards the seam allowance and continue your sewing to the end. Trim off the excess zipper tape. Flip the two pieces of fabrics wrong sides together and topstitch the fabric edge on the zipper. Repeat the steps to finish the opposite part.

Once you have finished sewing the two parts, it will look like this.

Sew a strip with the 2" x 9" fabric. Unzip the zipper to the halfway. Place all the matching pieces right sides together.  Fold the strip in half to create a handle for the pouch. Then, insert the handle between the outer fabric pieces where it is near to the zipper tail. Pin properly. Sew all the way around the fabric, leaving an opening at the bottom of the lining for turning.

Now, it is time to create a box bottom for the pouch. Squish the purse corner so the side seam lay directly over the bottom seam. Sew a 1" straight line across the corner and trim the excess fabric at the corner. Do the same for the other corners. Now, turn the pouch right side out and close the opening with slip-stitch. Done.

Look at the inner bag, the seams are invisible.

The outer pouch looks like this.

How to Smaller an Oversized Waist on Legging

How to alter the oversized waist on legging? If it an elastic waistband, then it will be super easy to make them a couple of inches smaller. You don't need any understanding of garment pieces and construction but you need to know some basic knowledge of simple stitches like slipstitch and whipstitch to get it done.

In order to save ourselves the tailoring fees or the cost of new leggings or pants, we should try to do something on it! Am I right? I have done something to smaller the oversized waist on my legging. It looks so nice and fit my waist size now.

Before you get started, find out how many inches you want your waist to be. In this post, I will show you how to alter the waist size by reducing two inches at both left and right sides of the waist on legging. Let's go through the steps below.

To begin, lay your legging flat with the right side out as shown in the photo. Align the front and back middle lines and pin it in place.

Using a pin to mark both sides where you need to do the alterations.

Push the pin inwards about one inch deep (can slightly more than one inch) as shown in the photo. Then, flatten the inner fold to create an inverted pleat and pin it in place.

Slipstitch the pleat. How many inches long should you slipstitch the pleat? It depends on how wide is your waistband. The width of my waistband is about one inch wide, so I slipstitch the pleat slightly more than one inch.

Now, turn to the wrong side of the waistband. You will have a box pleat here. You need to do a final finishing. It is so simple, what you need to do is to slipstitch or whipstitch the two sides of the box pleat so the pleat stays in place neatly.

Da! Da! Done!

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