There are also online patterns and instructions for making these. Here is ONE and here is ANOTHER. Quilting fabric is great for these. You can also use t-shirt knit fabric. You want a minimum of two layers of fabric, but it's most important that the mask fit closely to your face without any gaps.

Call first as some areas are limiting the kits to five, which may not make it worth the potential exposure to pick up. YMMV.

I keep seeing these stories online and even in the local newspaper. They never say who can use them or who wants them or where to take/mail them. I have plenty of fabric to make them (will also need more elastic), but I'd like to know it's not a waste of time.

Theresa, if you get any feedback from the nursing home, please share with us.

bkay

My niece works at a nursing home/rehab facility. They are paying my sister to make 200 for them. She is making the kind where you can insert a filter. She is using interfacing. You can also cut up a hepa filter, but those are now in short supply. I have a bolt of the thinest interfacing, so she said to use two layers. However, mine is iron on, so not sure that would be good to use. Toxic fumes from the glue?

bkay, Call nursing homes in your area, clinics, your doctor's office....anything medical related and see if they could use some. I have relatives in all kinds of medical fields and they all are asking for and using masks.

I finished 42 masks yesterday, but found another pack of elastic this morning, so 12 more today..I called the nursing home but was told to call back on Monday and speak to management. Will let you know what they say.

Theresa

Can you post a link to the site with the pattern you used? I found 1/2 yd of old interfacing (I'll wash it) and some 3/8" elastic.

Not one specific site but I watched many different tutorials. I started with Missouri Star and basically did that one. The first one with elastic, not her second one with ties.

Theresa

I ran out of elastic early on and have been doing ties. and Having to get creative, as bias binding (making it and using it) is slow. So I have been trying swimsuit fabric....cut 1” strip 28” length per side and you only have to stitch the mask to it (surgical style mask). I think once the user ties it, there is enough stretch to just pull it on/off similar to how elastic around the back of the head would be used, I have also been cutting one piece of fabric and serging short ends to make overlap pocket, and that saves sewing two seams. Keep up the good work, everyone and hope you all stay safe!

Dropped them off at the nursing home this morning. A terrible headline in our morning paper that said 8 seniors had died in one home and there were many others who were ill. I only hope these masks can help.

Theresa

Our local children's hospital has put out a call for masks. My husband figures I have enough quilting cotton to make at least 100,000! (He doesn't know how large my stash really is).

This afternoon my doctor and her two teenage daughters are coming over to make masks (and in the case of the girls learn how to work a machine).

She says the homemade masks someone dropped off at her office are more comfortable than surgical masks. She also has an MPH and teaches public health.

I finished 25 for one of the nursing/rehab centers here in town. Some with elastic (until I ran out) and some with ties made from bias tape. I have a spool of elastic on order and hope it will arrive next week (original ship date should have been here 3/31). Yes, I have stash for 100,000+ too, but won't make that many!

I have seen videos with a nurse saying these ARE throw-away masks - but facilities are using them. They hand them to people coming in to be tested for COVID 19 - to lower the risk of transmission.

Another 50 done. I had used all my narrow elastic so did about 20 with ties. And used all of my bias tape. I thought I was finished but on one video, the maker was splitting her wide elastic and getting twice as much useable elastic. So that was today’s Task and from one wide strip, I was able to get four strips.

When I washed the tie ones, they came out of the washer as a tangled mess. It took some time to unsnarl all that mess.

Theresa

PS I would hope that they are not all throw aways. That is a lot of time, energy and materials for a one time use. But I am sure that laundries in health/retirement facilities are ill equipped to wash and sanitize these little masks. I wonder if dropping some off at Doctor’s offices to be given out would be a good way to go.

Theresa

I dropped some off at the hospital today. I couldn't believe how empty the parking lot was. A lady came down and got them from me. I didn't even have to get out of my car. She was so excited and appeared to be wearing a homemade one herself. I've seen stories where they do wash and sanitize them. It would be fun, though, to see someone walking around town with one I made. Most had ties, but I have made a bunch were I cut the elastic 2" and insert one piece in each end of a 3" piece of double fold bias tape for the ear piece. I got almost twice as many that way. I'm offering them to some of my senior friends for when they have to leave the house and a couple of my friends who have battled cancer, too.