Tag: bow tie

Rose Tattoo bow tie

Rose Tattoo bow tie

I spent yesterday drawing out a new bow tie pattern, and here’s the result! It’s made from quilting cotton, “Rose Tattoo” by Alexander Henry. Not that you’d know it, from the way this one’s folded, but I think it’s rather nice this way.

Rose Tattoo bow tie

As you can see, it’s both freestyle (self-tied) and adjustable. That means you get the classic self-tied look, but you don’t have to tie it yourself every time you put it on. The slider that you can see just below the collar is hidden once the tie’s fastened, and there’s a hook at the back.

This tie’s quite a long one, adjustable to fit 15″ to 21″ collars. (For reference: a ladies’ shirt in a size 12 has a collar around a 15″.) Next time I’ll amend the band a little bit, to make it a bit shorter and ever so slightly wider.

I’ve popped this one into my Etsy shop, and my plan for this afternoon is to start work on a few more to follow it!

Peckham Rye

Peckham Rye

I seem to be developing quite a collection of bow ties now. I’ve made a purple & green shot silk one, a skull & crossbones one, a sewing print one, and one with silver bees. I also have a readymade burgundy and black one with a matching cummerbund, that I used to wear for orchestra concerts.

I bought this glorious spotty one from Peckham Rye on Newburgh Street. It’s woven silk, hand tied, with an adjustable grosgrain band at the back so that you don’t have to untie it every time. I love the pointed ends and the hand finish – right down to the packaging, the quality’s just gorgeous.

Sadly I’ve only actually worn two of my bow ties, and both were with outfits that could be considered to be costumes. Well, and the orchestra one. I used to wear black tie to blend in with the men when I was the only female brass player.

All of my smart shirts are patterned, and as most of the ties are also patterned I don’t feel confident about wearing them together. I suppose the answer is either to buy some plain shirts, or to make some more plain silk ties…

Bow Ties are (still) Cool.

Waistcoat & bow tie

Back in March I managed to find a lovely TM Lewin women’s shirt for a bargain price in TK Maxx. We were going to see Mr B the Gentleman Rhymer, so I thought it would be a good idea to make a gentlemanly sort of an outfit for the occasion.

The bow tie is Kwik Sew 3183, as usual, and the waistcoat is Butterick 4815, view C. They’re both made from a lovely silk dupion which is turquoise shot with purple. The buttons on the waistcoat have a little flower embossed into them, which is filled with purple enamel.

I also made a pair of trousers (Vogue 1034, view A) and a jacket (Vogue 1132, view B), but I don’t seem to have taken any photos of those. I must grab them out of my wardrobe and pop them onto the dress form for you!

So cool I made another one.

Bow Tie

Yep, it’s another bow tie. I couldn’t resist.

Exactly the same as the last one, the pattern is Kwik Sew 3183, and the fabric is “Sew What?” by Michael Miller.

Bow ties are cool.

Bow Tie

This afternoon I made a bow tie, using Kwik Sew 3183. This is the self-tie version, and I looked at a lot of instructions for how to tie it, but these seemed the easiest to follow. It’s nowhere near as difficult as some of the instructions seemed to suggest.

The tie is supposed to be adjustable at the back, with a button and several buttonholes. As I don’t have an adjustable neck, I think I’ll probably just check the length against my shirts and then sew the two halves together. (Although the advantage of having a fastening at the back is that you only need to tie it once, and after that you can cheat.)

The most difficult part of the process was turning the pieces to the right side after sewing them. I do have a loop turner, but I can never seem to get the hang of it so I went with the time-honoured method of fiddling about with a pair of tweezers and my fingernails. I might use slightly lighter interfacing next time (this is medium weight on quilting cotton), to make things a bit easier.

I have lots of little pieces of fabric lying around the place that I was originally going to turn into belts. I think they might be heading rapidly towards becoming bow ties now!