A little help for a Good Night Sleep

A few months ago my little sister called me and told me that she has been searching for a good Sleeping Mask. She wanted one that wouldn’t let any light in and one that would fit good around the back of her head without being too tight. But I had to admit that Sleeping Masks were not the kind of things that I seen in stores very often and when I had, they are often the kind that looks cute, but that doesn’t looks like you are supposed to used them.

But of course my little sister had figured out the best solution, because she decided to ask her big sister if she could make her a sleeping mask!:) And we all know by now that I can not say no to a creative challenge like that, so I went straight into “how can I solve her problems” mood and here’s the result!

The First challenge for me was choose what type of fabrics to use, because knowing that  she would have them on her face the whole night, they would need to be soft enough not to irritate her skin. So I was sitting in my sewing room with a pile of old clothing I wanted to throw away on my desk (a couple old shirt, a t-shirt and a pair of jeans), when I kind of discovered how soft some one these fabrics had gotten after being washed several times and figured that they would be perfect for the Sleeping Mask.

I made a cardboard stencil for the Sleeping Mask in the size and the shape I wanted it to have. Then traced around and cut out one piece in pink soft cotton t-shirt fabric for the back, one piece in striped white and blue elastic cotton shirt fabric for the front and two layers of light blue fleece fabric as filling material.

Then I stacked all the piece on top of each other; front fabric, back fabric and then then two layers of filler fleece fabric. I used my sewing machine to sew around the edges, but left a small opening on each side of the Sleeping Mask. Then I turned it inside out, so that the seems were now hidden on the inside together with the fleece fabric, and then I once again used my sewing machine to sew a nice seem about 1cm away from the edge to give the Sleeping Mask a little more structure and shape.

My big problem all along had been trying to find a solution of how to creative a adjustable strap to go around the head and in the spirit of using things I had laying around, I found a bra strap that ended up bing the solutions to all my problems.

The great thing about the bra strap was that it was already made to be adjustable and it had the perfect white color that I wanted. To add the bra straps I decided to make little fabric channels to make a cute transitions between the Sleeping Mask it self and the strap, and then used the openings I had left on the sides of the Sleeping Mask as points of where to add the straps.

The last problem I need to tackle was how to make sure no light would get through around the nose area. This problem I ended up slowed by adding a thin metal rod inside the bottom of the Sleeping Mask, which will give my sister the possibility of adjusting the shape and making it stay in the shape she needs it to be the whole night. When I sewed the last seem around the edges of the Sleeping Mask, I also automatically created a channel all along the edges, which now works perfectly as a home for the metal rod.

And here is the finished Sleeping Mask! Such a cute little gift! And as for decorations you can of course add anything you want! I added this little iron on butterfly on the front and little bows I made out of silk ribbons on the sides.

And this is what the Sleeping Mask looks like when my little sister wears it! It did make it pretty big, so the size could of course be adjusted if you wanted a smaller or narrower one.

This is an Instagram picture my little sister sent me when she received the package with the Sleeping Mask, and I just though she made it all look so cute together!

Yet another challenge conquered, can’t wait to see what comes next!

– Christine