A sign of the times

It has occurred to me that one of the reminders of the past two years will be in the number of garments that have masks to go with them. I am planning two dresses for myself, and even though I doubt I’ll get to wear them until times are much less alarming, I’m going to make matching masks, just to be prepared!

Having finished the Jacket of Many Stitches, signed it in Morse Code (of course!), and noting that it’s definitely a garment for chillier weather, I thought that some winter-weight masks might be in order. So I took a pattern from one of the bought ones we’ve got, and drew myself some ideas.

I have some cream wool left over from a jacket I lost in Paris when I was working there. I’ve always regretted that jacket, so I’m hoping that using the leftovers for something else will reduce the sting a little. It’s been thirty years, so it’s about time!

It was trickier than I expected to get my motifs small enough to fit on the mask, especially since I decided to use up some of the fragments of leftover felt at the same time, and sometimes I was a bit short of felt.

I started off with a little butterfly, and made him quite simple, enlivened with a thread with a bit of sparkle in it. I think it’s a machine thread, and the sparkle goes from gold to brown and back. I made up that mask, and realised that it was a bit on the small side. It does cover everything it needs to, it’s just that I prefer to feel there’s a bit of extra space in it.

So I tweaked my pattern a little, and drew my idea for the motifs on the fabric. At which point I realised that the pencil wouldn’t rub out, so I running stitched over the lines and turned the fabric over.

Nothing to see here, folks, moving on!