Men's Ties

 Well, I've made my first tie!  My husband asked if I'd make him a tie -- I'm not sure why since he is a tie snob.  For a long time, he was on a Missoni kick, and when he got tired of Missoni, he moved on to Pancaldi and would treat himself to 2 Pancaldi ties on special occasions.  I finally woke up and realized that they could be had much more cheaply on E Bay.  Who cares if someone else wore it once???

But, I promised a tie, and here it is.  I should have just gone out and bought a Vogue pattern, but I figured this was a tutorial easily found on the internet.  The first few patterns and instructions I downloaded called for full fusible interfacing and full lining.  It just didn't sound right to me!

Finally, I found a Burda free download that looked to me as if it was constructed the way a fine tie should be.  You can see in the drawing that  there is one wide tie piece and one narrower one.  The wider one is cut from fashion fabric (in this case I used a silk I had purchased last week at The Silk Road) and the narrow piece is padding and I cut this from a nice firm and not too flat wool)

If you look closely at the drawing, you will also see a diagonal line.  This is a where the tie is underlined to and for this I used silk organza.  (By the way silk organza makes a wonderful pressing cloth since you can see through it and it can withstand high heat). 



Rather than line the whole tie, you cut lining for both the front and back tips.  This particular pattern called for mitering the tips which nicely pulls the fashion fabric to the inside so your lining won't ever show.  Nice touch!

The construction is quite simple.  You pin your underlining (I hand basted).  You place your lining tip, miter, and sew.  You then place your padding inside, fold over one side with a raw edge.  Turn under a seam allowance on the other side, fold over so they overlap and hand stitch (which takes forever!)
A couple of notes.  This particular pattern looked like it was cut in one piece. Most tie patterns are not.  Since they are cut on the bias, that would take an enormous length of fabric.  I cut the pattern into threes and pieced.  Also, I found this particular pattern a bit short since my husband and son are both tall, so I also added a couple of inches to the pattern.

I may still see what Vogue shows for construction since I imagine there are any number of configurations, but this one is fairly traditional.  You can make them really elaborate -- monogram the inside.....put an unusual keeper for the tail to slip into, fancy label, etc. etc. 


If you look closely, it's not as pretty as his Pancaldis, but it's made with love!

SLAN