April 17, 2020

TOM BIHN Reusable Cloth Face Mask Pattern + How-To Videos

42 comments
A person sitting at a sewing machine to sew masks.

UPDATES 06/16: SMALLER YOUTH PATTERN OPTIONS NOW AVAILABLE AND RACHEL'S YOUTUBE TUTORIAL ON ADDING A FILTER POCKET TO OUR MASK

Hey folks! As you may know, we've been offering our Reusable Cloth Face Mask as a "buy one, donate one" for the last few months.

Some of you may want to make the mask at home yourselves instead of buying one from us. Makes sense to us. While we've gotten pretty efficient at making masks, we know that it's really the combined efforts of home sewers and small shops all across the country that will ensure that everyone who wants a cloth face mask can have one.  

Download the pattern for our ORIGINAL SIZE Reusable Cloth Face Mask here.

Download the pattern for our LARGE SIZE Reusable Cloth Face Mask here.

Sizing information to help you determine which pattern to use can be seen here.

UPDATE 06/16: Due to your requests for smaller youth sizes, we have come up with three different scaled down patterns; please share your feedback in the comments as to which size of pattern you think works best for which age groups. IMPORTANT: Make sure to read the CDC guidelines on cloth face masks and cloth face masks for youths. Per CDC guidelines, children under the age of 2 should not wear face masks.

Download the pattern for our 85% of the ORIGINAL (Small/Medium) Size Reusable Cloth Face Mask here.

Download the pattern for our 80% of the ORIGINAL (Small/Medium) Size Reusable Cloth Face Mask here.

Download the pattern for our 75% of the ORIGINAL (Small/Medium) Size Reusable Cloth Face Mask here.

UPDATE 06/16: RACHEL'S YOUTUBE TUTORIAL ON ADDING A FILTER POCKET

Rachel has created a great YouTube video that demonstrates how to add a filter pocket to our Reusable Cloth Face Mask pattern. Watch the video here.

Note: Rachel's video demonstrates the use of a paper towel or coffee filter as a mask filter, which are suitable face mask filters. You may have seen reports elsewhere online of folks using HEPA or HVAC or other industrial filters, which can potentially contain fiberglass or tiny plastic particles that can cause permanent lung damage. Do your research on filters and make sure the filter you are using will not harm you.

 

 
Please make sure to read the instructions for use and warnings for our Reusable Cloth Face Mask; the same applies to the mask you'd be making. If you need more copies of the Warnings and Instructions For Use to distribute with masks that you are providing to others, please download the Instructions For Use and Warnings PDF and print additional copies on your home printer.
 
My brother Dan and I made two quick videos about home mask making. It’s such an awesome thing to see so many folks pitching in and making cloth masks for themselves and others.
 
In the first video, I’m showing some production tips for folks who are interested in making masks at home, or are already doing so. There’s quite a few how-to videos out there already, many of which demonstrate how to sew some very simple as well as some very clever mask designs. What I thought I could add was some more general techniques to increase your speed and output: if you’re making a mask in half an hour or an hour, that’s great, but think of how many more masks you can make if you can get it down to five or ten minutes each? I’m sure there’s efficiency tricks that you’ve developed yourselves – please add them to the comments below the video.

 


The second is a step-by-step, realtime video of me sewing one of the masks we make in our factory in about four minutes. I’m a pretty good sewer, but the professional sewers that work in our factory would of course put me to shame. But this little video does show the steps and hopefully, along with the PDF pattern you can download and print, you can make these same masks at home if you want.

 
A few notes on using the pattern and selecting materials:
 
UPDATES (19 April 2020):

     

    Some of you pointed out that I didn’t make this clear on the PDF, and I’ve fixed that now – thanks for your keen observation and feedback.


     

    Creative Commons License
    V1 Reusable Cloth Face Mask Pattern by TOM BIHN, INC. is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
    Based on a work at https://www.tombihn.com/blogs/main/maskhowto.
    Permissions beyond the scope of this license may be available at https://www.tombihn.com/blogs/main/maskhowto.

    42 comments

    Maureen Hoffmann - May 15, 2020

    Tom, Your generous provision of the mask pattern was mentioned at the end of this article. THANK YOU.
    https://b-townblog.com/2020/05/10/port-of-seattle-will-now-require-cloth-face-coverings-for-all-at-sea-tac-airport/?fbclid=IwAR3aKw8SAzmgU4KFZ0nKY5nIDECd2AHQOx-rhbROw6B3d-DMBKvSqcdHRG4

    Donna - May 10, 2020

    thank-you: I am collecting patterns along with making and donating masks. I like yours. I am finding I usually have to use the larger size or have to draft a bigger size. Again thank-you for taking time to do this for all of us at home helping our communities. NY Strong.

    Susan Moore - May 4, 2020

    Made many masks but this is a clear winner. Feels like an origami project at first but it’s actually quite simple. Thanks so much for your generosity in sharing. I am officially a Tom Bihn fan!!

    MichelleB - April 26, 2020

    This pattern is fantastic! Can you post the larger size pattern as well? THANK YOU!

    John - April 26, 2020

    I have a larger size head and would also like to make some for others that might prefer the larger version. Any change you could post the template for the larger size? Your posting the template makes me glad I own and use Tom Bihn products! Thanks!

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    We're the TOM BIHN crew: we design bags, make bags, ship bags, and answer questions about bags. Oh, and we collaborate on blog posts, too.