Sunday, June 15, 2014

Father's Day Bow Tie


Happy Father's Day!

I decided to sew my dad a bow tie this year, and I'm super excited that I actually succeeded! (If you've been following the blog for a while, you know perfectly well that I'm still a beginner sewist.)

To make the bow tie, I used a free bow tie sewing pattern from Sew Like My Mom, a quarter of chevron print cotton fabric from Joann Fabrics, some iron-on interfacing, and my sewing machine.


I started by making a tester tie out of muslin and it worked on the first try, so I felt pretty confident moving on to the real chevron fabric.  I'm sure everything would have turned out fine if I had skipped this step, but I just don't feel comfortable cutting into cute fabric without being positive that I know what I'm doing.  Perhaps I'm a tad overly cautious?  Perhaps.

Anyway, I moved on to the chevron fabric and made the awesome bow tie shown above.  The pattern and instructions from Sew Like My Mom were great.  Everything was clear and concise, so I never got confused.

The bow tie is currently wrapped up and waiting for my dad to come home and open it!


I have a couple of notes about the making of this bad boy:

1.  After I had sewn the tie together and it was still inside out, I learned the importance of being very gentle when using a knitting needle to turn the tie right side out.  I tried to force it at one point, and I accidentally poked a tiny hole in the fabric with the tip of the knitting needle.  Ugh.  Lesson learned.

2.  I also learned that I'm not very good at making sharp corners.  If you look closely at the picture below, you can see that the corners of the tie are slightly rounded.  I sewed nice sharp corners with my machine, they just didn't stay that way when I flipped the fabric right side out.  Do you guys have any tips on how to do it properly?


Teeny tiny flaws and all, I'm really happy with this bow tie, and I can't wait for my dad to open it!

Once again, happy Father's Day!
xoxo
Laura

8 comments:

  1. Your bow tie came out great! Love the gray tones in your pictures :]

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  2. Did you trim your corners? Cut the corner off close to your stitching at an angle. I also trim just a bit from each seam towards that corner. Not too close or your stitching will shred out. (I'm not describing this well. Google and see if you can find a tutorial with pictures.)

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. You described it well! I'm going to do this when I make the next bow tie. =) Thanks for the advice! xoxo

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  3. I love this!!!

    Although my father does not wear ties at all, I would love to make this for him, just to show him that I can and I will, for him!

    And Hey, I did not notice the rounded edges till you drew my attention to them. But, I think it looks allright, even with the rounded edges. Thanks for sharing this post!

    Lots of love from india!!
    xoxo

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thanks, Fathima! If you decide to make a bow tie for your father, I'd love to see a picture of it.

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  4. Did you add seam allowances, to the pattern? When I turned it from the wrong side to the right side, it was too narrow to turn it..

    ReplyDelete

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