camwyn | First mask with full boning and nose strip complete.

Dark haired woman in a black shirt that says SCIENCE, wearing a marbled blue mask that scoops down lower under her glasses.

Same woman, same shirt, same mask, view is from one side and shows elastic loops stretching to behind the ear, also shows the center of the mask is well forward of where the wearer’s face actually ends.

The inside of the mask. two strips of plastic cross in the middle and end up in stitched pockets. A strip-shaped pocket runs along the top interior edge,

This is the ear loop variety. I’ll do a fabric ties version next. The boning is cable zipties cut to the appropriate length, with the cut edges filed down to avoid damaging fabric. They are removable. The nose strip is a coffee bag closure and is also removable. Outer layer is quilter’s cotton backed with fusible interfacing, interior is consumer grade polypropylene (Oly Fun brand), the layer touching the face is 600 threadcount cotton. Hand wash and air dry, ideally in water no hotter than you can stand to put your own hands in, although the site I got the instructions from is run by a retired nurse who works with fabric and who says that it should hold up through a lot of washes even if a bit of bleach is used in the water.Basically, ‘wash it like a bra’ and it should be fine.

I will be making one all cotton version with two layers of 600 threadcount instead of an Oly Fun layer. That should be okay to machine wash on delicate and machine dry.

Oh, yeah, happy Thanksgiving to my American readers, joyous November 26th to everyone else.