I wanted to make a tie for Caleb for the wedding and then I thought to myself, why not make one for Bill as well? I’ve had this nifty Alexander Henry dragon print lying around for ages, and I thought it would make a nice tie. I like the scalloped design in the background.

I already reviewed the Burda Osman Tie pattern I used for Bill’s tie in my post Holiday Gifts: Necktie.  I went ahead and left out the tie interfacing/interlining as I did in the last version, again this was quilter’s cotton, though not as heavy as the pirate ship cotton from the last post.  Bill commented that he really liked the way the tie tapered a little in the middle, it made tying it easy and made a nice looking knot.  All in all, the tie took me about an hour to make. Easy Peesy Lemon Squeezy.

Caleb’s tie was even simpler.  For his, I used the Ottobre Designs Boys Tie Pattern. Once again, take the time to copy it out nicely onto pattern paper – you’ll thank yourself later.  Note that Ottobre Designs does NOT include seam allowances, you will have to add your own (don’t forget!), depending on what you’re most comfortable with. I added just a quarter inch, standard quilting seam allowance.  The toughest part of this pattern is turning the whole tie tube inside out after you’re done  sewing. I don’t know why I have such a hard time turning tubes. I have any manner of tools to help me with this task and they never seem to work right. I always end up picking the tube out with a pin! At any rate, that is really, really the toughest part.  I promise. If you have a little boy, I encourage you to make this tie!  The tail end sticks out because Caleb kept “adjusting” it. In truth, I think he liked it that way. The tail is a little short to put inside a keeper, I might lengthen the pattern next time so the tie will be long enough for a keeper. 

Burda Osman Tie Pattern: ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ out of 5. Easy, free and yeilds professional results.

Ottobre Designs Boys Tie Pattern: ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ out of 5. So easy and free as well, but it needs to be a couple inches longer.

Isn’t he a cutie pie? Yes, I’m biased.

PS. Yet another To-Do-list project down!

Strictly speaking, this was not a holiday gift.  My dad’s birthday falls just a few days prior to Christmas and, because I understand how much it must suck to get a load of Christmas ‘n’ birthday combined gifts each year, I make a concerted effort to give him one gift for each. This year’s birthday gift was a pirate ship necktie.

Now, be honest, a necktie is kind of a lame gift. But a handmade necktie?  It kind of rocks. I used the Osman Tie pattern from burdastyle.com (http://www.burdastyle.com/patterns/osman-tie) – it is available in a PDF download for all of $2.  The most painful part of the whole process was taping the pattern together and then copying it out onto pattern paper. I do HIGHLY recommend this step, though. Pattern paper is much easier to deal with than taped together printer paper.

I used cotton, not tie silk; and to make matters “worse” it was quilter’s cotton – already relatively thick and stiff on its own. I also didn’t buy tie interlining, but used a piece of suiting that I had on hand  as suggested in the pattern instructions. The whole thing went together in the matter of an afternoon. I ended up leaving out the interlining all together – the quilter’s cotton was so thick it was unnecessary.

Just a couple lessons learned on this one: don’t just eyeball where the design is on the material. As you can see from my photo, I only ended up with one little pirate ship on the front of the tie because I thought I had it lined up correctly, but I didn’t check. Also, if and when I make this again, I’ll move the stay up a little — the skinny side of the tie is a little short to stay in my stay.