7 DIY Plague Masks You Make At Home For Halloween

Hands down this is going to be one of the most popular Halloween costumes for 2020 but what is going to make your Plague mask stand out from the rest? Sure you could buy a plague mask or you could DIY something amazing!

And do you want to know a little bit more about the mask before you make your own plague mask for your costume? I had to do some research as to be honest I didn’t really know the history of the plague mask before writing this Halloween post.

A plague doctor was a physician who treated victims of the bubonic plague. In times of epidemics, these physicians were specifically hired by towns where the plague had taken hold. Since the city was paying their salary, they treated everyone, wealthy or poor. Wikipedia

So why the beaks? These doctors were all about the weird stuff, they believed herbs would cure them, so the beak was filled with herbs as if to “filter” the disease before reaching the mouth of the wearer. This mask is very popular in Venice and is worn at the yearly festivals. It’s not so fun now though is it.

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The costume is usually credited to Charles de Lorme, a physician who catered to the medical needs of many European royals during the 17th century, including King Louis XIII and Gaston d’Orléans, son of Marie de Médici.

Threadbound Art is a small Etsy shop full of whimsy, with lots of animal patterns, and lots of geese in particular.

The farmhouse and country category is the largest as of this writing, and of the 16 patterns in it, 11 involve geese. I guess they really are trending this year! There’s also a cowboy frog, a little pillow with bees and honey on it and a couple of patterns with chickens/ducks.

I love this little farmer goose watering his carrots, so that’s the one I picked to share. The design is 42 by 48 stitches, which comes out to 3 by 3.43 inches, or 7.62 by 8.7 cm, when stitched on 14 count fabric. It only uses whole cross stitches, so it’s a nice option for beginning stitchers. It calls for 13 colors of floss.

The Nordic and Scandinavian collection has even more geese, with a couple of designs showing flying geese and a white on black goose pattern that matches others in this set including a rabbit, swan, bird, fox and deer.

Woodland animals includes a mouse with a mushroom, a witchy box and a rabbit and owl both on tree branches, to name a few.

Other designs include a set of spring flower designs worked on small pillows, a handful of cute animals designed for kids rooms (I love the cozy frog with his book!), a couple of holiday patterns and fairy houses.

A collection of mini cross stitch patterns includes sheep, an acorn, pine cone and pumpkin, as well as a duck, seagull and swan.

If you don’t want to buy individual patterns, the shop also sells pattern bundles including some of the woodland animals, the little farmhouse pillows and spring pillows, the fairy houses, a couple of frogs and even some loving cats that I don’t see elsewhere in the shop.

Check out all the designs at Threadbound Art, and let me know if something catches your eye!

[Photo: Threadbound Art]

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