Valami Mask With Neck Strap!

If you wear a face mask intermittently throughout the day and can’t keep track of where you put it after you take it off, you’ll find a neck strap incredibly helpful. Hang your mask around your neck when you get dressed in the morning. Then, when you need to wear it, just flip it up and hook the ear loops around your ears. You’re all set. The neck strap keeps your mask handy. It also relieves ear fatigue and makes your mask fit better around the edges if you adjust the neck strap so it has no slack.

Make dining out easier with a neck-strapped Valami mask. Mask up as you leave the car; mask down when the food comes.

Get yourself a free Valami Face Mask pattern created by Valli Schiller and me. Click here so the rest of this all makes sense to you. When you read through the pattern, note that my previous video tips and hacks are clickable links within the pattern. Please don’t assume that my videos replace the pattern. That’s like wearing a face mask with your nose hanging out and calling it good enough. Read the pattern. Please.

After constructing your Valami Mask (Style B), check out page 17 of the pattern for Ear Loop instructions. Instead of cutting stretchy fabric tubing to 12″ lengths, cut 16″ lengths. Here’s a video on how to insert them into the Side Casings of the mask.

(Apparently I have too many pictures on my phone. Unbeknownst to me, halfway through shooting the video it ran out of room and decided to stop recording. I apologize for the unnatural break in the middle.)

You will need a safety breakaway bead for each neck strap so you can fasten it around your neck like a necklace. The term “safety” here is overstated, the assumption being that if the mask were yanked off your neck the bead would come apart before you were in injured. Not so much. I hung an assortment of sewing notions off a loop of stretchy fabric tubing joined with a breakaway bead. It took nearly SIX POUNDS of stuff to get it to pop open. Similarly, I tried to pull a mask off my neck with a swift yank. OUCH! It did not come apart! THEREFORE: Neck Straps are NOT suitable for kids’ masks. NO, NO! NO! NO! No!

These are the “Pop Barrel Connectors Safety Breakaway Clasps Beads Black for Ribbon Lanyards” that I have been using successfully for adult masks only. They are nearly impossible to open when they are not attached to the stretchy fabric tubing, so don’t snap them together right out of the package. Once on a mask, don’t pull them apart, “break” them in half. (They do get easier to open over time. Still not suitable for children to wear.)

Visit my Valami Mask Supply list on Amazon for the bodkin I used in the video, polypropylene filters to put inside the mask pocket, pony beads, tweezers, and other supplies. (I earn from qualifying sales.)

Valami masks with neck straps are my new favorite. They’re the only kind of masks I wear now. Give it a try and let me know what you think.

Making Valami masks? Join our ValamiDIYFaceMasks group on Facebook!

Ami Simms

If you received this in your email inbox and find that the links are not clickable, click the title up above (Valami Mask With Neck Strap!) and that will take you to my website where all the links will be clickable.

The Valami Mask was created by Valli Schiller and Ami Simms. Get the free pattern at https://www.BestDIYFaceMask.org