About a week ago, I watched a video that Jeremy Howard released. It explained the need for wearing masks during the coronavirus outbreak, and demonstrated how to make one with just a T-shirt and scissors.

Jump to 7:00 to see the cuts he makes in the shirt.

Luckily, I had surplus cotton undershirts to use for experimentation before I could get masks made from more comfortable material. This gave me room for trial-and-error. I made two masks that night, and my girlfriend and I started wearing them.

More and more government entities have recommended homemade masks. Most recently, the CDC recommended that all Americans wear homemade masks outside of their homes. This does not replace social distancing. The masks should be used together with social distancing.

Cutting the mask

My girlfriend and I have both made a few masks by this point. Most of our masks have been made out of T-shirts, but I also sewed a mask yesterday using 600 thread count sheets. You can make a few choices that will improve your experience. Don’t get me wrong: these masks are forgiving. Anything you cut will probably work. But some decisions can save you some frustration.

Cut T-shirt masks low enough below the sleeves

Make sure that you cut low enough. Otherwise you may not have enough material to cover your nose and mouth. Or even worse: you’ll have exactly the right amount and need to continually adjust the mask. This is a nonstarter, since you shouldn’t touch your face when you have the mask on.

You don’t need to go crazy when considering the cut. An inch below the sleeves is sufficient. Cut straight across the shirt. Avoid veering the cut towards the neck. You’ll do great.

Cut the front and back of the shirt as evenly as you can

One of my first two masks was “the bad mask,” which we threw away. When cutting the mask, I allowed the top and bottom layers to slide against each other. I cut the cloth at different heights on each layer. After the cuts, the cloth from the back didn’t fully cover our faces.

This is easy to prevent. Spreading the shirts out on a table helped. Sharp scissors help. Stop cutting when the fabric starts to slide. The cuts may end up uneven. Just adjust it and keep going.

Err on the side of thicker straps

I broke my favorite mask while tying it. The straps had been too thin. Err on the side of cutting your straps a little thicker.

Cut the “U” in the sleeves deep enough

On men’s medium undershirts, I needed to cut the U deeper into the sleeves than I expected. I needed to cut even further on a real T-shirt. In our first cuts, the U stopped before the stitching that connects the sleeve to the torso. This made the masks difficult to tie. Extending the cut at least a half inch past this stitching made the masks much easier to tie.

Wearing the mask

Wear T-shirt masks with a hat

A hat helps hold the top knot in place. I went on a 2 hour grocery run a few days ago. The hat pinned the mask to my head. I didn’t need to readjust it once it was comfortable.

The hat also helps the aesthetic a little. At least, as measured by a handful of comments. One delivery driver offered that it looked like I had a hurt tooth. My girlfriend suggested that it looked like our heads were gift-wrapped presents. The hat fixes this somehow. Now, people joke that I’m going to rob them, which I guess is an improvement? My friend Ryan wore a hoodie with a homemade T-shirt mask. He looked like a cartoon assassin. So there’s a lot of variability in the look.

Plan for the time

I take walks during my working day to stay sane. The walk is often sandwiched between meetings, and I need to return before the next one starts. It takes a few minutes to tie the masks. It also takes extra time to wash them after the walk. I pad my walks with 5 more minutes, and that is enough.

Don’t mess this up. Clean your mask after you go outside.

You’ll get over the embarrassment

My girlfriend and I felt odd the first time that we stepped onto the street wearing our masks. It felt like wearing a Halloween costume in March. But we got over it. And we felt safer when we walked past people.

It became irrelevant a few days later. Most of my neighbors started wearing masks in response to what they were reading in the news. Now I’d feel silly if I didn’t wear a mask.

Wearing a T-shirt mask with glasses

My glasses fogged up on my first walk. Completely. I had to remove them to see anything. I was just walking around my neighborhood, so it wasn’t a problem. But I needed to fix this before I could go grocery shopping.

Glasses fogging has been a continual problem. But with some experimentation, I’ve started to make it manageable.

Breathe out through the cloth

My glasses fog when I exhale normally. To combat this, I press my lips against the cloth when I exhale. I also try to exhale through just my mouth. In practice, I get into a rhythm of inhaling through my nose and exhaling through the cloth. You don’t need to get this rigorous. It’s just a habit I’ve picked up.

This doesn’t work as well with the higher threadcount mask that I sewed. The air is still escaping around my nose. But it’s sufficient for the T-shirt masks.

Tie it lower and tighter than you think you need

When tying the knot behind your neck, tie it lower and much tighter than you think you need.

The air that fogs your glasses is escaping around your nose. Making the bottom knot tight addresses this: it creates a tighter seal around your nose.

I also noticed that the knot slipped down the first few times. This caused the pressure on my nose to relax. I fixed this by tying the knot lower than I naturally would.

Put the mask higher on the bridge of your nose than you think you need

Putting the mask higher on the bridge of your nose works well with the low knot. It changes the angle of attack so that the T-shirt hugs your face a little closer.

Here’s a picture of me with one of the masks. You can see that I’m wearing it really high on the bridge of my nose – it’s roughly level with my top eyelid. You don’t need to be this extreme if you don’t have glasses, and you don’t need to worry about this if you wear glasses and they’re not fogging up.

Wearing a T-shirt mask with long hair

I asked my girlfriend about wearing the mask with long hair (her hair extends past her shoulders).

Prefer a ponytail

She said that it’s easier to wear with a ponytail because it doesn’t interfere with her hair.

A bun is still manageable

She said that It’s harder when her hair is in a bun. The bun made it easier to accidentally tie the mask into her hair. She called it a double-edged sword: resting the top knot against the bun helps keep the top knot in place. But if too much pressure was applied to it, then the bun would risk being undone.

Wearing a T-shirt mask with headphones

It took some adjustment, but I got to the point where I could wear the mask comfortably with headphones.

Pass the top knot behind your ears, not over them

The most comfortable way to wear the top knot is over your ears. But this conflicts with headphones. Instead, pass it behind your ears. This puts some pressure on my ears. They stick out a tiny bit. But it’s still comfortable to wear the headphones with the masks.

Do your best

This is a process of trial-and-error, and we’re all doing our best. Share your tips with your friends.