Transparent Face Mask

As promised, here’s a tutorial on a transparent face mask important especially for those who need to communicate with hearing impaired people. If you need a more simple face mask with just a window, look here.

I used the pattern for this mask and just made it transparent. This was a trial mask and there are just small changes I would make. I will tell you what changes you could consider at the end of the tutorial when I show you the finished transparent mask on my face.

There are also two things I need to mention before I show you how to do it. You probably ask, how it feels to have your face “wrapped” in plastic. It’s actually ok. The mask should never “seal” your mouth and nose, there should always be some gap and having this the face doesn’t sweat more than in a fabric mask. The second thing is that the window gets foggy. The fog disappears when you breathe in and the mouth is visible most of the time but of course if you have a tip on how to prevent the mask from fogging up, please let me know.

Supplies

• pattern
• 100% cotton fabric
• elastic or ties
• transparent foil
• thread
• ruler
• pencil
• scissors

How to make the transparent face mask

Cut 2 pieces of the pattern and on fold as indicated.

Pin both pieces together and draw the part you’ll cut out. The distance from the edges I find convenient is 3,5 cm from the short sides and 2 cm from the rest of the edges.

Then cut it out.

Pin one of the pieces of the future face mask to the transparent foil and stitch close to the inner edges.

Cut off the excess foil.

Fold both pieces (the one with the window and the one without it) in half and stitch the short diagonal edges (where I have the pins).

This is what the two pieces should look like now.

Pin both pieces right sides together. Align the centers properly. Stitch along both long edges and one of the short ones. You’ll be left with one short side open.

Pull the mask right side out through the open short side and topstitch arount the foil. After this you’ll have the darts stitched to the foil. Then topstitch the long sides.

If you want to insert a wire, follow the steps in this tutorial (“Inserting Wire”). Fold the short sides in to create tunnels (double fold the open side to hide the raw edge). Stitch.

Pull the elastic or ties through the tunnels using a safety pin. There are several ways to tie a mask, just go through my mask tutorials to find the one you prefer.

Transparent face mask done! As you can see the mask is pretty big for me, that’s due to mine stretching the fabric a lot when I work with the foil. Just to be sure if I was sewing the mask for myself the next time I would cut the pattern 1 cm smaller up and down, I would probably keep the length.

Another problem are the darts. As you can see they cover a big part of my face. The darts are necessary for the mask to fit the face but next time I would make them shorter. There’s still enough space and the mouth is very well visible, however, I find the darts very distracting.

That’s it, did you find this tutorial useful? Follow me on facebook and you’ll never miss my tutorials!