Mask Organizer/Hamper

Total Time: 2 to 3 hours

Yield: 1

Supplies:

• 1 sturdy hanger
• pieces of upholstery or heavy-duty fabric, the width of the hanger and the desired length needed depending on the number of masks you have and need to organize (one for front and one for back)
• 1 piece of mesh for laundry bag
• scrap clear plastic for labels
• stiff interfacing
• thread
• scissors
• pins
• sewing machine
• buttons
• 2 yards ribbon

Steps:

1. Determine how long you want your hanging organizer to be. The width needs to be narrow enough to fit on a hanger. I used a long piece of leftover upholstery fabric and folded it in half.

 
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2. Next, with some other scrap upholstery fabric (leftover from a curtain bottom), I cut three panels of fabric to the size of the pockets I wanted to use on the front of the organizer. Make sure the panels are tall enough and wide enough to hold the size of fabric masks you are storing. I machine stitched the long sides of the top and bottom.

 
3. Then, because I wanted to label the pockets by color of masks, I cut out rectangular pieces of plastic for the "see through" labels. Using a stiff interfacing, I cut out a border shape to go around the three sides of the plastic rectangle to hide the stitching and to give it a more professional look. You could use trim or ric rac as well. I stitched the plastic labels on each pocket. For my example, I had two pockets on each row. After this step was completed, I pinned each panel to the front fabric of my organizer, pinned along the sides and bottom of the pocket, and then stitched in place. Using cardstock, I printed labels, cut them to the correct size, and inserted in the plastic label.

 

 

 
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4. For the back of the organizer, I used some other upholstery fabric since I ran out of the green fabric I used for the front. I made two larger pockets. One to hold dirty masks and one for all white masks since she had such a large quantity of white masks. I cut the fabric to the desired size and hemmed the top and bottom. Then, I placed them in the desired position on the back of the organizer, pinned in place, and sewed across the bottom of the two pockets and the sides of the two pockets. *Make sure you don't sew the pockets upside down. You will need to visualize the placement according to the top and bottom of the organizer, the bottom, in my example, was the fold line of the fabric.
   

 

 
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5. To make the mini "laundry" bag for the masks, I had a scrap of rug backing. I cut it to the desired size, using the top to fold down to make a flap. It doesn't work well with a sewing machine, so I put a safety pin on the end of the ribbon and wove the ribbon all around the sides and bottom of the rug backing, making a knot in each corner to hold in place. Sew two buttons to the top part of the laundry bag, underneath the flap, and use the holes of the rug backing flap as button holes. This can be stored in the pocket with the dirty masks and used for laundering purposes.

 

 
6. With right sides together, pin and sew around the entire organizer, leaving the top open. Turn right side out. Turn in edges of top to inside. Pin and machine stitch close to edge across the top opening. Fold the top of the fabric over the hanger, about 1 1/2" down. Pin to hold in place while sewing three buttons across the top. This keeps the organizer held in place on the hanger.

 

 
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