Nautical-ness. Continued.

Today, I'll continue my foray into sewing for wannabe sailors.  We're going to stick to the boys, and since I've already shown you little mister:

I will now show you Mister Mr.  I don't often sew for mr.  Ok, well, I don't EVER sew for mr.  Because what the heck would I make him?  I mean, he rarely even wears the stuff I BUY for him, so I'm thinking spending all that time to create something he won't take out of the closet would lead to a lot of pent up resentment we don't need, right?  But he needed SOMETHING homemade for this shoot, because he couldn't be the only one left out.  And so, I decided to make him a tie.

Because every studly water-lover stands poised like this in his khakis and tie on his large yacht.

Right?


I know there are probably a lot of tutorials out there for creating your own tie from scratch, but I didn't look them up.  So I'll just show you what I did, although details will be lacking, I'll just tell you that right now.


I started with this awesome pink tie I bought mr that he rarely wore (see?  Told you) which I found shoved to the back of the closet with some kind of gunk dried and crusty all over the front.  I think perhaps it was a ploy so he wouldn't have to wear it anymore, what do you think? (For the record, he ASKED for a pink tie... but apparently I bought the WRONG pink...)

As you know, you can't wash ties.  But I thought "what the heck.  I'm doing a load of pinks anyway..."  (Yes, my wash is divided by color, I'm just that weird.) And of course, it did not work.  Not only did it NOT get the gunk out, but the tie was all misshapen.  So I did what any sane person would do.  I cut it apart.

Did you know that a tie is comprised of 6 pieces?  I did not know that.  I would have thought 3 tops.  But, since I was cutting this baby apart, I figured I'd trace around the pieces and that way I'd have a pattern for a tie.  So I traced around each one: the skinny end that ends up in back, the thin piece that goes around the back of the neck, the larger pointy end that ends up in front, the lining for the pointy part of the large end, the lining for the pointy part of the skinny end and the interfacing stuff that makes the tie stiff.


Here's a disclaimer.  You know how ties are made out of silk and I don't know, polyester maybe?  Stuff that's thin and light and slick?  There's a reason for that.  If you're going to use normal fabric, like I did, you should just skip that interfacing piece so you don't end up with a knot the size of your hubbies head.  Just sayin'.


SO.  Place your big triangle piece on the large pointy end, right sides together and pin.  Sew the two slanted sides but leave that top part open.
Do the same thing with the small triangle and the skinny pointy end.  Then trim the points and turn them right side out.

Next, you'll sew the straight edge of the large pointy piece and the straight edge of the skinny pointy piece to the two short ends of the trapezoidal piece - right sides together.  (See, told you this wouldn't be an awesome tutorial.  But you can see in the picture what I mean... this is obviously after it's been sewn and flipped right side out.)

Now, iron that really well, flip it right side down and insert your interfacing piece inside the pointy parts on both ends.  Then just iron the sides in twice -

Once to iron about 1/4 inch under to hide the raw edge, and then again to crease the tie piece right up against the interfacing piece.

See?  It's starting to look like a tie now!  The sides of the tie should overlap just a touch when you iron it all down.

Now you'll take the end pieces.  Just hand sew repeatedly in the same spot to keep the sides overlapped at the point there.  Be sure not to sew through to the front - just sew through the sides which have been ironed down.  

And this part - this part right here - will make you question your decision to make something you could buy for $10 at walmart.  You will now need to whipstitch up the entire length of the tie.  BUT you will need to do this on the INSIDES of the pieces that overlap, so that you can't see ugly stitches all over.  Basically, you just do a blind hem by hand - if you've ever done that before.  It's kind of a pain.  If you look super close, you can see the stitches in between the two pieces, on the left side of the photo.

Once it's all stitched, iron it up really well.  And there you have it!

A tie with a really big knot!  (Like I said, next time, no interfacing...)

And mr obviously wanted to point out that this tie is also perfect for bird watching.  Or maybe he's looking out to sea.  I don't know.  It's also perfect for skipping stones, which actually turned into lobbing stones as far as he could...


Want more bugaboo creations?  Don't forget to pop over to Sew Can Do!  I'm sharing a glue gun project for CraftShare 2011.  Part 2 of my project is up today!

*Be sure to check just below for all the fun parties I link to!