SAN FRANCISCO, Calif. (KRON) — Many hospitals are in need of masks and now some counties are recommending that people wear masks whenever they leave the house.

To save the critical masks for doctors and nurses, many have turned to making their own masks at home.

KRON4 spoke to a woman in San Francisco who’s been making masks for the local hospitals and teaching others how to do it — all from home.

Within the last two weeks, Jennifer Satzger’s already made 200 masks for doctors and nurses across the Bay Area.

“This is a skill I have and you know this is something I can do to help out,” Satzger said.

Now she’s teaching others, using simple items that are already inside your home.

All you need is a needle and thread, a t-shirt for the ties and something preferably 100% cotton like a pillow case. This will be used as the mask portion to cover your face.

To get started, Jen walks us through step by step.

“So you’ll take two pieces of fabric and they are cut 8 inches by 9 inches. The 9 inches is going to go horizontally and that’s gonna be the part that covers your face the long way,” she explained.

Next, you’ll fold a t-shirt in half and cut one inch strips along the bottom.

“I’ve got some cut here. You’re just gonna pull it to make a chord so its a little longer so these strips you’re gonna need four of them between 15 and 18 inches each,” she said.

Then place and pin one tie to each corner of your mask.

“As you can see we got one in each corner. You’re gonna want them to hang out the bottom and you’re going to want to leave, once you start sewing, a two inch gap so that you can pull fabric through,” Satzger said. “Or if you’re sewing by hand just sew about a quarter of an inch from the edge with a straight stitch.”

“You have the bottom this is what it should look like roughly, pull your mask through and you should have the right side facing out,” she continued.

Next, you’ll make three even pleats in your mask. finally sew a straight stitch around the border of the mask two times.

“You can see we got the pleats here and you put it on and then take the ties and ties them around your head,” Satzger said.

Voula! Then you’re finished.

Like Jen, many others are turning to creative alternatives to help with the mask shortage.

For more details, click here.

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