Which DIY mask is best?

One of the last remaining shreds of normalcy we had to cling to during the Covid crisis has just been ripped away. Until this weekend, I took some comfort in the fact that, even if we couldn't go out to work or eat or shop for anything but food, we could still at least go out for walks. But on Friday, the CDC made an official recommendation that all Americans should cover their faces in public — particularly "in public settings where other social distancing measures are difficult to maintain," like the grocery store. Which means now, we can no longer leave the house without at least bringing along some sort of mask to don in case we find ourselves among other humans.

When this happened, Brian and I had a few respirator-style dust masks on hand down in the shop. We'd already donated all our unused ones to a collection for local health care workers, but Brian had figured they wouldn't want the ones that had been used, so he cleaned those up as best he could and we donned a couple for for our first masked foray out in public on Saturday. What we learned from this is that those things are really darned uncomfortable to wear for any length of time. Even for the ten minutes or so that we spent in the grocery store, they were really itchy and unpleasant, and I kept wanting to reach under the mask and scratch my face, which would have kind of defeated the purpose of wearing it. (Well, not entirely, since the mask would still have served to protect other people from my germs, if I had any — which is the main point of making everybody wear them. But it wouldn't have protected me any.)

So we quickly concluded that wearing these things everywhere for the remainder of the shutdown — which will surely continue for weeks, if not months — was not an option. We'd have to come up with some kind of DIY alternative that we could actually stand to have on our faces.

Fortunately, there's no shortage of instructions online for making homemade face masks. In fact, I'd seen a story in the New York Times Tuesday about how to construct one from "common household materials," saying it could even be sewn by hand if necessary. I looked over the directions and it didn't look too complicated, and I had an old floursack towel that was big enough to make two complete masks according to their plan, so I decided to give it a try.

Well, it didn't take me long to discover that this simple mask was actually not simple at all to make. We ran into our first difficulty in Step 1 when we tried to construct the fabric ties to hold the mask on. The article said to cut "4 thin pieces of material, about 18” long and ¾” wide," fold them in half "twice lengthwise, then once more to tuck the rough edges inside," and sew down the middle. All I can say is, you try doing this with a ¾-inch strip of fabric and see how easy you find it. Brian, who is much better on of the sewing machine than I am, struggled to work his way down this relatively short seam on the multi-folded strip of fabric, while I tried the much simpler approach of folding the fabric in half only once and stitching the edges together by hand. This was quicker but not nearly as neat, and neither piece came out looking exactly professional. We discovered that we got much better results with much less effort by simply cutting a side seam off the towel, so we repeated that process with another seam to get our fourth tie.

After that, we had to figure out a way to secure all the ties to the corners of the fabric and bunch them up in the middle to keep them out of the way while we (or rather Brian) stitched the seams. This, too, was much harder than the article made it sound. It merely says to pin them down and "Make sure that the ties are gathered in the center of the fabric layer," with no indication at all about how to do the gathering. An 18-inch strip of fabric isn't all that easy to just tuck out of the way. We ended up sort of rolling them up and bundling them with rubber bands, which made the whole "sandwich" of fabric rather bulky and hard to work with. Brian was eventually able to sew all the way around it and invert it, but then we ran into yet another snag: trying to form three pleats in the fabric and pin them in place while he stitched yet again around the whole thing. The whole finished mask was less than 6 inches high, so I only had an inch or so to work with for each fold, and it was very difficult to fit three of them into the available space. And once I had them all pinned, the whole mask was very thick, making it difficult to stitch all the way through it.

Eventually, we managed to produce one complete mask. It wasn't too hard to put on, and while it wasn't exactly comfortable to wear (and like every mask I've ever worn, it caused my glasses to fog up, making it hard to see), it was at least better than the dust masks. Still, the whole process was so exhausting that we couldn't even contemplate making a second one that night. Our conclusion was that this simple-looking mask is actually a lot harder than it looks, and it's definitely not a project for a novice sewer.

So, for our second attempt, we decided to hunt around for another design that might be simpler. And apparently, lots of people have been tackling this type of project, because we found lots of plans to choose from:

• A fitted cloth face mask with a space to insert a filter, which this user made from a sanitary napkin. I never seriously considered this one, since it looked a lot more complicated than the first one, which was already pushing the limits of our abilities. 
• A fitted mask that covered in a New York Times editorial requires the use of a template. It's not as elaborate as the other fitted one, but probably still more than we could handle.
• A design recommended in Marketwatch that seemed a little too simple in some ways and not simple enough than others. It requires no sewing, using staples and safety pins to hold it together instead, which struck me as (a) uncomfortable, (b) not very sturdy, and (c) difficult to wash. At the same time, it does require the addition of an unfolded paper clip to make a "nose pinch," which may improve the fit if you manage to get it positioned just right, but also makes it a lot more fiddly to construct.
• A triangular mask made from a fleece blanket, which requires no sewing at all as long as you have some long strings to use for the fastenings. I thought this one would probably be too warm, and I wasn't eager to sacrifice a blanket for the purpose. But I might revisit the idea if another wave of this pandemic hits next winter (or maybe even if it doesn't, just for warmth).
• A disposable mask from a paper towel. This obviously wasn't suitable for us, since we don't have any of these in the house, and anyway, if we're going to all the trouble of making a mask, we'd like to be able to use it more than once.
• A pleated mask similar to the first one we tried, but with a more detailed set of instructions found online my brother-in-law (who has plenty of experience with face protection, being a firefighter). He also sent a link to a set of video instructions.

Brian eventually decided to try this last one, largely because he was determined at this point to sew something that would actually work well and look decent. This second attempt went much better than the first. He used more fabric from that same dishtowel, but this time he ironed it all first to get it as smooth as possible, which made it much easier to work with. He also figured out that it was much easier to make the ties if he started with much wider strips of fabric, folding over the seams and ironing them flat before stitching them.

Aside from that, he basically followed the instructions in the document, with one variation: after making his straps and folding them around the edge of the mask itself, he stitched them together first, rather than starting at one end of the strap and stitching all the way up the strap, the mask, and the strap on the other side. It made for a little more backtracking, but it ensured that the thing stayed together. As you can see, this finished mask came out much neater-looking than the first, and when he tried it on, it stayed put reasonably well.

Although this second set of instructions was definitely easier than the first, I also discovered directions in several places online for an even simpler mask — one that requires no sewing and even, if you have a suitable piece of fabric, no cutting. All you need is a good-sized piece of fabric (a scarf, towel, or even an old T-shirt will do) and two elastic bands (hair ties or just plain rubber bands). Versions of this incredibly simple mask appear on the CDC website, on Vox, and on Domino.

I tried whipping up one of these new-sew masks from another spare dishtowel, and it took literally one minute to complete. It was kind of bulky and didn't stay in place as well as the sewn masks, but it had one big advantage: since we have plenty of these dish towels, it would be very easy to wash the mask after each use. Just take off the rubber bands, toss the towel in the laundry, and use a fresh one to make a new mask next time you need it.

So, all things considered, I'd have to say this ultra-simple, no-sew mask is the best DIY design for ease of construction and ease of use. It also has the advantage that you can make it with nearly any piece of fabric as long as it's big enough, so you can make a different mask to coordinate with any outfit you wear if you're so inclined. However, if you'd prefer something sturdier and better fitting, I'd say give the second pleated mask a try. Both designs qualify as ecofrugal, since you can most likely make out of materials you have on hand. But the no-sew one is probably a bit more ecofrugal, since it doesn't permanently alter either the material—so on that distant, glorious day when this whole crisis is over, you can just return it to its original use.