One of the ways my friend Erin and I like to save money is by giving each other first dibs on any clothes we don’t want anymore before we donate them. We’re roughly the same size, so this works out really well!
In my last Erin haul, I found this lovely lightweight maxi dress.
The only snag we ever encounter with our swapping arrangement is that we have very different personal styles. Erin likes more classic looks, and I’m…well…a bit quirkier.
There was nothing wrong with this dress, but it just didn’t feel quite me.
I could have just worn my new-to-me dress as-is, but then I remembered this awesome fabric face mask a friend gave me.
That’s right! It’s The Golden Girls!!!! This is one of my favorite shows of all time!
But now that life is getting back to normal, the thought of tossing out my favorite masks makes me a little sad, as many of them were handmade for me by close friends.
A quick examination of my new dress revealed it didn’t have pockets.
Here’s how to repurpose a fabric face mask into two patch pockets!
First, I used my seam ripper to carefully unpick the pleats from each side.
Then, I pulled the side elastic taut (so none of it would show when I was done) and snipped it off.
I used my seam ripper to unpick the top of the mask so I could remove the metal nose piece.
When it was removed, I re-stitched the top of the mask.
I pressed my newly-depleated mask so it was nice and flat.
I folded my mask in half and pressed it again.
Then, I made a single cut right down the center of my mask.
So, I’m not thrilled with how the pattern of this fabric lined up for this project. My girls aren’t exactly centered on each pocket, but there isn’t anything I can really do about that.
If this is the sort of thing that bugs you, I’d recommend using more of an all-over patterned mask for this project.
I unpicked a few stitches on the top and bottom of the open sides.
Then I folded them inside and (you guessed it!) pressed them into place.
I clipped each side down…
…then stitched both sides down.
If these pockets-to-be look to too long, that’s because they are!
I folded the top part over so 1″ of the contrasting back fabric showed and (yep!) pressed it into place.
Time to attach my new pockets!
I measured from the top and sides to make sure they were even and pinned my pockets to the front of my dress.
I also tried my dress on to make sure I felt the pocket placement was optimal for my hand (or arcade token) holding needs.
Time to stitch those girls down!
And that’s it! Now my formally less-than-exciting dress has cute and quirky pockets!
Have I mentioned I hate that Blanche and Sophia got cut off a little? Let me reiterate that.
I’m still happy with this project overall though!
I hope this project inspires you to look for ways to repurpose your old fabric face masks rather than tossing them out!
- Here’s a ’90s babydoll dress refashion I did with a repurposed face mask collar!
- And heeeere’s a ’60s style collar I made from another fabric face mask!
- Just in case…here’s a really easy way to make a simple fabric face mask.
Cheers!
