light green sleep mask with white blanket and blue mug with coffee

Luxury sleep mask

01 November 2022
10 Minutes to read

Posted by

01 November 2022
10 Minutes to read

I personally don't use sleep masks that often, but my daughter loves them and always has one on the bedside table. They’re brilliant for light sleepers, when staying in hospital, or for travelling – I always carry one when I fly.

Today I will show you how to make yourself a luxury sleep mask with your ScanNCut and sewing machine. We’ll decorate these with various quotes or motives made of heat transfer vinyl, which can also be cut with your ScanNCut.

The nice thing about homemade sleep masks is that you can individually adjust their size, so they’ll fit much better than the generic ones you find in the shops. You can also use change the materials to be super luxe, or to match your bedding, pyjamas or home décor!

I’ve made these in cotton and fleece, but you can change the fabrics to suit you. As you don’t need much fabric this is a great project for using up scraps or those fat quarters we all have too many of in our fabric stash!

I find these make great gifts for my friends who like the finer things in life. You can also make matching ones for special trips away – like for a big birthday, hen do or wedding.

What you’ll need

Brother ScanNCut with craft materials and cutting board

Equipment

ScanNCut CM or DX
ScanNCut standard cutting mat
ScanNCut Auto Blade (to cut the HTV)
ScanNCut Rotary Blade or Thin Fabric Blade (to cut the fabric)
ScanNCut High Adhesive Support sheet or ScanNCut Fabric Mat
ScanNCut hook tool
Sewing Machine
Ironing board/pad

Materials

Cotton fabric - or a fabric of your choice (just make sure it can withstand a hot iron)
Volume fleece batting
Elastic – about 30cm, but depends on your head size
60cm bias tape (again dependent on size of mask made)*
Heat Transfer Vinyl (go for a brand with a strong adhesive, as you’ll be using this on fabric)**
Pins
Scissors
Thread
Iron
Baking paper

*I made my own bias out of the same material I made the eye mask in, but you can buy matching/contrasting and use that instead.

**You can recognise HTV by the fact that it’s glossy on one side and rather matte on the other side. The glossy side is the carrier film, and it must point downwards when cutting.

Hand flexing black flex foil in front of Brother ScanNCut

General instructions relating to ScanNCut:

Always choose the correct mat for your material. The material should stick to your mat securely. Test a small piece on a corner of your mat to make sure you can remove it again without damaging the material. You can find our handy mat and blade guide for ScanNCut DX models here, and the ScanNCut CM models mat and blade guide here.
We recommend that you do a test cut before you cut your design.
Patterns can be transferred to your ScanNCut via USB or WiFi, depending on your model.

How to

Download the cutting files for your ScanNCut here. You can transfer them via WiFi, cable or USB pen drive.

Tip: if you want to change the size of the sleep mask to suit a smaller/larger person, then you can do that. Use CanvasWorkspace, or the screen of your ScanNCut. Just make sure to scale all parts of the design.

First, cut out the heat transfer vinyl (HTV). Stick the HTV on the cutting mat and make sure that the matt side - the foil itself - is facing up. The shiny side needs to be stuck to the cutting mat.

Hand adding square of black flex foil to ScanNCut cutting mat

Tip: you can change the decal designs to anything you want! Use CanvasWorkspace, or the screen on your ScanNCut. Just make sure you design fits on the sleep mask. If you do change the design for the front of the sleep mask, make sure that any text in the design is mirrored. The download designs I have supplied are already mirrored.

In the settings on your ScanNCut screen, select the half-cut function and adjust the cutting pressure if necessary. Cut.

Tip: it’s best to test the cutting of your foil with different settings before you finally cut the motif.

To weed the text or the motif, use the ScanNCut Hook Tool. Be careful that the inside of the letters are also removed. Put to one side.

Hand weeding foil from black sticker text with small hook tool

For the sleep mask you need two pieces of cotton fabric and one piece of volume fleece, which is used as the interfacing. Pull up the sleep mask cutting file on your ScanNCut screen and position.

Tip: if you’re using scraps, use the ScanNCut’s background scanning function to scan in the material and then position your cutting outline in the correct place.

To cut out the cotton, place the High Adhesive Support sheet on the cutting mat and then put the fabric on top of it – this stops the fabric moving about. Use the Thin Fabric Blade to cut. Alternatively, you can also use the ScanNCut Fabric Mat with the Thin Fabric Blade or the Rotary Blade.

Trace around one of your cut sleep mask pieces onto the volume fleece and cut by hand with scissors.

Take the HTV motif and place on top of one of your cut sleep mask cotton pieces (the one you will use for the front of the mask if you’re using two different colours of cotton). Make sure the HTV is placed on the right side of the cotton (the side that will face out at the end). Make sure the HTV is touching the cotton and the carrier film is facing up. Do the placing on the ironing board or mat, so you don’t have to move your carefully placed design once you’ve got the positioning correct.

Hand placing black text sticker motif on front of blue sleep mask

Place the baking paper very carefully over your cotton and foil combo. Be gentle, so you don’t move the placement of the design. You may need to move things slightly before you iron.

Baking paper placed over sleep mask shaped piece of cotton

Make sure your iron is on its hottest setting and place it on top of your design. Hold the iron still and press down, do not move it backwards and forwards – if you move the iron you can damage the design.

Iron for about 5 seconds and then check whether the carrier film can be removed easily. If not, iron for another 3-5 seconds.

Hand holding teal and white iron on top of a piece of baking paper

You have to be careful when removing the film because it is very hot, but on the other hand you have to make sure that you do not remove the text, or damage the design, by being too rough or quick.

Hand peeling clear film from black text on blue sleep mask

After peeling off the carrier film iron the fabric and the lettering again for a few seconds. For this, also use the baking paper. Place the finished piece of cotton to one side.

Retrieve the non-foiled piece of cotton and place it wrong side down onto the glue side of the volume fleece. Now iron the volume fleece onto the cotton back of the mask. Put your iron on the cotton material, and not the fleece. Use the baking paper again, to save any glue seeping onto to the face of iron.

Hand ironing blue check sleep mask on grey pressing mat

Now put all three layers of the mask together like a sandwich – the piece of cotton with the volume fleece ironed on it and the decorated, upper piece of cotton on top. The volume fleece needs to be in the middle. Make sure the right sides are facing out – we’re not turning this project through (from inside out), as we’ll use bias tape to cover the raw edges. Pin together.

three layers of blue cotton sleep masked pinned together for sewing

On the back of the mask, on the left and right hand sides of the mask, attach the elastic. You may have to adjust its length/where it sits at the side of the mask to suit you. The band must fit well from temple to temple above the back of the head. It shouldn't be too tight, but it shouldn't slip.

hands pinning blue elastic to the back of a blue cotton sleep mask

Sew everything together following the edge of the sleeping mask. Sew as close to the edge as you can.

hands sewing blue sleep mask on Brother sewing machine

Now the bias tape has to be sewn. To do this, turn the mask upside down and put the open bias tape on it so that its edge is flush with the edge of the mask. The bias tape should be placed right side down, onto the right side of the back of the sleep mask (ie the bias tape is opened out). At the beginning of the bias tape, leave about 1cm unattached. Fasten everything together with the pins on the back of the mask.

hands pinning blue check bias tape to edge of blue sleeping mask

When you come back to where you started, fold the ends of each end of the bias tape over, and place one side over the other. So you’ll end up with neat ends with just one seam when you sew together. You may need to cut down your bias tape a little if you have loads to fold under.

hands using scissors to cut down end of blue check bias tape

Pin and sew the tape close to the edge of the sleep mask.

hands spinning blue check bias tape to edge of blue sleeping mask

Now turn the mask with the front facing upwards, fold the bias tape over, then around the edge of the mask. Make sure to fold the raw edge of the bias tape under, and then fasten everything together again with pins. Make sure the bias is covering the raw edges of the mask, the initial stitching from sewing the layers together and the stitching from sewing the back of the bias on.

blue check sleep mask with black lettering on front pinned together

Now sew together, close to where the bias tape meets the sleep mask. You could use a topstitch here if you wanted to.

Sewing a light blue check sleeping mask on a Brother sewing machine

I hope you enjoyed my project and hope you enjoy cutting and sewing! Who’s going to be the lucky recipient of your first sleeping mask?

I can’t wait to see what you make! Remember to tag in Brother on Instagram and Facebook, and myself too!