Tag: tie

Striped Tie

Stripy tie

Paul decided the day before the event that he would come with me after all.

Thankfully I managed to get him a ticket, and I had just enough striped fabric left over to make him a tie to match my outfit.

The diagonal stripe is because I didn’t have a big enough scrap of fabric to make the front of the tie in one piece, so I had to make a join. The stripes didn’t quite match up as precisely as I’d have liked, so I ran a piece of leftover braid across the seam.

Not bad for a last minute dash and a few bits of leftovers!

Suddenly obsessed with ties.

McCalls 2447

Not a bow tie this time, but a tie nonetheless.

The pattern is McCalls 2447, cut to the shorter length.

Although I love the way it looks, I have to say that quilting cotton is really not the best material for making a tie. Because it clings to itself, it’s difficult to make a decent knot and to slide it into place. It also gets very crinkly where it’s been tied, and I don’t think anybody would appreciate having to iron their tie as well as their shirt!

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!