GRANDMOTHER'S SEWING ROOM: Homemade Tie

I saw this great blog post here on Purl Bee. and thought that was something I could do for Mark for Father's Day.

It looked easy enough. So I went to Wal Mart to find some fabric. This is NOT what I had in mind, But I found this faux leather (washable! hehe) and thought it would be perfect!

I read over the blog and read the hints on the Stars and Sunshine blog.

One of the hints was to make it a bit more narrow.
So I trimmed 1/2 inch off the taped together pattern.








When I went to trim the extra 'ear' off the cut pieces, I found that mine was not quite a 45 degree, so I trimmed it to make it a 45* angle with my quilting ruler.

 After I sewed on the interfacing, I folded in half and trimmed up the edge so it would be even. No idea why I cannot seem to cut a straight line with scissors.. I guess that's why God had someone invent the rotary cutter and rulers!

I added 3 1/2 inches to the pattern, so had to do that on the interfacing piece, too.

 Look how much was off when I sewed the tie pieces together. UGH... I think maybe the one piece in the middle was curved or something before I trimmed the pattern piece down.

Anyway, took my trusty ruler and wend from the edge of the middle piece to the edge of the end piece and trimmed the length of the tie on both sides to make it even.

I discovered there needs to be a lot of ironing and this is NOT a good fabric for ironing. It melts.. BUT, I was able to put my iron on a low setting and use a pressing cloth and it did ok.
Another thing I would do different with this material is that I would NOT iron on this interfacing!!  I've decided the material was thick enough without it.  When I needed to iron 1/4 inch on the edges, it was too thick, so I had to trim it off. What a mess. And then it would not say flat because it was too thick.

 Made a Wal Mart run and found this permanent fabric tape!!  Wish it had been 1/4" size. I will have to look around to see if it comes that small.









 But anyway, I put it 1/4 inch away from the edge, and folded the edge over the edge of the fabric tape, That worked well.....
UNTIL I had to fold it over and sew it together. It says NOT to sew through this, but I did anyway. I had a tough time getting the need through and it was a stick mess, but as you can see in the first picture, it all turned out well.

I will definitely make some more ties for the men in my life!! I just probably will NOT use the faux leather.