The Prepping Thread - A Newer Beginning ;)

GreyQueen

Si_Clist said:

Can anyone please recommend a pattern/construction method for a fabric mask which actually fits a human-shaped face and doesn't look like it was made in a hurry by a five year old Blue Peter viewer?  We have fabric, thread, a choice of sewing machines and even some knicker elastic, but not a sensible pattern.

ETA - I just asked my Lady Wife when girls stopped wearing knickers held up by proper knicker elastic threaded through the hem at the waist.  She's guessing late 1950s but is now also wondering, so what's the answer?

Hi, I've made 10 masks of this design: 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fySsaOojEVM

The same person (they seem to be a fabric shop somewhere in USA) has also done an update with various tweaks, particularly for those of us who are experiencing the Great Narrow Elastic Famine of 2020. One good thing to know is that you can make easy ties for masks by cutting up 1 inch wide strips out of old tee-shirts.

With my masks made to this pattern, I have the outer fabric and the inner fabric of different cottons and am using an 8 inch garden twisty-tie, with one inch cut off it, in a sewn channel at the top of the mask so I can mold it to my face. A recent tweak as a spectacles-wearer is to fold a tissue lengthwise into a strip about an inch wide, and paper-clip it to the upper edge of the mask, inside the mask. This seems to prevent moisture from fogging one's glasses.

maryb, I have a good quantity of heavyweight fusible Vilene, some of which I actually bought in the late 1990s (!) but not enough to go into production for charity. I've made masks for me, for the family and am going to run up a couple for a friend. Wish I had more elastic, I will be using ties on the next ones. I'd dearly love to get into the fabric shop.

euronorris

Arghhh!!! I typed a whole post and lost it! Grrr.

Have ordered this elastic. Like the elastic on the disposable surgical masks. My dad gets on with it better, with his hearing aids: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Meter-Elastic-Sewing-Round-Making/dp/B0875TTTDH/ref=pd_sbs_79_1/257-7965003-9944868?_encoding=UTF8&pd_rd_i=B0875TTTDH&pd_rd_r=978617ba-1b0d-4871-9ce0-34ae1eba7f8e&pd_rd_w=sd3CJ&pd_rd_wg=pDAVi&pf_rd_p=2773aa8e-42c5-4dbe-bda8-5cdf226aa078&pf_rd_r=0K1N2W5M1NRP432420Y3&psc=1&refRID=0K1N2W5M1NRP432420Y3

I ordered nose bridge wires from ebay. Arrived. Self adhesive. Glue won't survive washing, so stitching into place. Will link in a following post.

Am I use a free pattern. Will also link in another post.

euronorris

Free pattern: https://ruthmaddockmakes.com/product-category/face_masks/

euronorris

To make surgical masks fit better: https://youtu.be/2TTg53aAP8Q

DigForVictory

Si_Clist said:

I just asked my Lady Wife when girls stopped wearing knickers held up by proper knicker elastic threaded through the hem at the waist.  She's guessing late 1950s but is now also wondering, so what's the answer?

I can vouch for girls then womens knicker not having reusable knicker elastic from the early 70s on, but you could still buy both knicker broad & shirring elastic at a good haberdashers until the late 80s (my bus stop for school was outside said good haberdasher & at ye gods in the morning I had time to goggle at the window displays & am still passable on the different between dress highland mary & hunting ross).
By the late 1980s it was not possible to buy "civlised mens pyjamas" without elasticated waists which annoyed my grandfather massively - on my grandmother's death I inherited her sewing stash & we had over 20 replacement pyjama trouser ties, many under 30" long. Truly they were built differently then.
I'd quite like to know when M&S stopped doing the full and half slip in favour of "shapewear"  (which of course is not made several sizes below where you seek it). My mother in law oversaw my acquisition of these (largely unmentioned) garments as part of my trousseau & so of course when I needed to look absolutely tidily put together I could neither find (not likely fit) them & had to go hunting. A lady had a stall thereof in the market, I was told, "but she's away". I ended up swearing at my sewing machine the night before the funeral - it would have made the deceased laugh So Hard, but it seemed so important at the time. 

Anyway SiClist, I can offer witness to some time before the 1970s but my schoolgirl demographic may not have included those as had to make their own underwear.

jamanda

Following my prepping problems, I have just been to the local Co-op.  I have come back with eggs, bread flour and long life milk.  This is the first time I have been able to buy bread flour since 2 weeks before lockdown.  Happy bunnyland.

missychrissy

I can remember knickers held up with proper knicker elastic in 1963 when I started grammar school. I left school in1970 and it was gone by then. However, it was available in haberdashery shops for some time later because I used it in the top of knitted bottoms for my babies and a wider version in little corduroy trousers I used to make for them in the early 80s.

Si_Clist

DigForVictory said:

... Anyway SiClist, I can offer witness to some time before the 1970s ...

Oh yes.  I know knickers held up with loose elastic were still a thing when I was in primary school (mid-1950s) because every now and then one of the girls would go on the hunt for a safety pin on account of she'd lent hers to some other girl and not got it back.  And in those days they still used to tuck their skirts into their knickers at playtime so they could still see out when they did handstands against the playground wall.  But by the time I left big boys' school in 1962, things seemed to have moved on, at least judging by what the young ladies of my acquaintance were wearing ...

It's just one of the many things that you know definitely changed, but you can't say when they changed.  Like the lamp posts with the crossbar from which the cleaner/light-bulb-changer would hang his bucket or bag of tricks.  When did they disappear?  When enough politicians realised that they could be strung up from them, so they had to go?

Whatever, thanks ever so to all from both of us for the mask information

mothernerd

We had to wear navy blue knickers with proper elastic at my grammar school (1969 - 1976). They used to do knicker inspections. Think it was phased out sometime during my time there but not sure when (post 1972 probably). There were a number of relaxations to the uniform (hats no longer compulsory, then 'girdles' - a belt worn over the 'gymslip' that had to be tied with a complicated knot, skirts allowed for all but the first two years) but when I was in the sixth form the boiler broke and we were working in freezing conditions. We asked if we could wear trousers (the teachers were) but no dice and threatened with mass sendings home for any infringement or attempts to 'strike'. 

silvasava

I took a pattern from DH neoprene motorbike mask that fits over nose, mouth & chin and uses velcro to fasten. It makes the fit really good,doesnt make the ears sore and can be pulled off easily - this one is simiar.
https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Safety-Filter-Reflective-Cycling-Bike-Training-Smog-3-Extra-Filters-Running-Dust/174308476609?hash=item28959846c1:g:t1wAAOSwUQBe26CK&var=473402574079