When I saw the December issue of Sew Magazine I noticed a template for a man's tie. I already have my own tie pattern, but they are all mostly the same so the instructions I give here will be fine if you choose a commercial pattern or a pattern download.
The fabric I chose was a Liberty Lawn in this fabulous print. I chose a small piece of mint green spotted Lawn to line the tips.
The first thing you need to do is to find the bias of the fabric. The easiest way to do this is to take a square of your fabric, fold it into a triangle and press the edge. The resulting line is the Bias of the fabric.
Ties are cut in the bias so that they drape well.
Lay your fabric pieces out along the bias of the fabric, with the pattern pieces the right way up
Cut out the same pieces in a lightweight interfacing.
Cut the points out in your contrast fabric.
Iron your interfacing onto the wrong side of the fabric and join them together to make one long piece. Trim if necessary.
Fold the tip of the points over very slightly and press down. Turn the sides in forming a narrow hem and mitre the point. Press. Pin. Catch stitch the mitred point in place.
Do this on the tie ends and on the facing too.
Position your facing over the ends of the tie, leading a border and catch invisibly all the way round. Press the long ends of the tie over to make another small hem. Do this on both sides.
Make sure that the point are very sharp and very neatly finished. The tie point , especially the front one is the focal point and anything less than perfect will be very noticeable.
I find it useful to mark the centre of the tie with an erasable pen if the fabric is dark enough for it not to show through to the right side.
Fold the ends into the centre and press, start by stitching a bar tack at the begining of the long seam of you like
Carefully and invisibly catch stitch the two ends together taking care not to catch the front of the tie. Make sure too that the points match perfectly on the inside.
Ties need a keeper on the back of the front to hold the thin end neatly in place. I use one of my own labels
Give it a final press and it is finished.
The inside has to look as neat as the front, so take care with sewing the facing in place. Men will just not wear anything which looks home made.
I used to machine the points but this method is far easier and every bit as professional looking.
This is a lovely project for when you want to sit and hand sew in the evenings, there is only a very small amount of machine sewing to do.
Do surprise you man with a beautiful hand made tie, it will only take you an hour or so to make!
Happy tie-making
Angela
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This is my you tube video all about ties, do take a look
