Pfaffing with my Pfaff

Wet and windy this weekend! Which tbh isn’t surprising this time of year, especially as I live in Wales plus we have just entered a countrywide ‘firebreak’ lockdown for 17 days.

Amazing double rainbow, one benefit of rain

So i took this as a good opportunity to make space on the dining room table and bring one of our many sewing machines downstairs. This particular one is a Pfaff Hobbymatic 801 that we bought in a charity shop about 4 years ago in Exeter for £45. Such a good price for good sturdy German design.

Needs a better bulb in it, probably LED

This is the first time I’ve used it and thankfully it’s a very simple machine and worked pretty much perfectly.

So what’s my reason for getting the machine out? Mostly I needed to make some reusable surgical caps for work but also whilst I have a good few fabric masks for wearing out and about, I never seem to have enough!

My lovely friend Moira made me a mask a few months ago and i really liked the design as it has an inner layer that allows you to put a filter in it.

The design is free to download and is called an Olson Mask, I downloaded va PDF via UnityPointHealth.org

Like any attempt at sewing a new pattern, it’s always best to do a test drive because inevitably you will make mistakes, I’m a bit lazy so i used some pretty fabric I got free for my trial mask and yes…i made some mistakes-mainly cutting 2 front pieces out of the same side!

Personally, i find the most difficult part of any sewing pattern is actual cutting out the fabric. It certainly helps having a sharp pair of scissors that are used purely for cutting fabric. I also used tailors chalks to trace the paper pattern onto my fabric.

The instructions are pretty simple and like any sewing project-it gets easier the more you do it!

I had a few bits of nice printed cotton lawn in my fabric stash-mostly steampunk patterns. Usually i would wash the fabric first in case of shrinkage but i knew some of the material would be fine from previous use. After sending pics to a couple of friends, I ended up making them some masks too! lol

No pictures of the surgical caps as they’re quite ugly! lol

The mask took , on average from start to finish about 45 mins to an hour to make. I would definitely recommend them for a non clinical setting. I like that you can add a filter to make it 3 layers and that it wraps around the face literally from ear to ear