Tied With a Bow

That’s right, bowties!

These are for the groomsman in my best friend’s wedding. The fabric is our lightweight brown linen. They turned out super nice, but the construction was pretty tricky due to the loose weave of the linen. I made what I’ll call a practice (it wasn’t intended to be). The bias stretched out A LOT, making it hard to sew up, and the band was really wonky.

[If you look at a traditional bowtie, there is a long end that is adjustable, and a short end. Each end is comprised of a front and back sewn together, then turned inside out. Only side of each end is interfaced.]

So, I had to figure something out. My solution was to interface both sides with a lightweight interfacing, but I was a little hesitant to try it. Bowties and neckties are cut on the bias to give them a little stretch for comfort and ease of tying, and they drape nicely that way. Also, happily, because the bias doesn’t fray. I was afraid the interfacing would negate the stretch of the bias.

But, it turns out it just tamed the stretch!

So, I doubled up the lightweight interfacing and traced the pattern onto it, using pins to keep the interfacing from shifting so I could cut it out doubled up after.

The interfacing is the same color as the table! I used our charcoal interfacing because the white showed through the linen. Not cool.

I cut the pieces out, arranged them on the fabric for max space usage, and pinned them down so I could iron them.

Here is another piece, all ironed on.

As you can see, the fabric still shifted a little, but This made cutting the fabric out soooooo much easier.

We don’t sell bowtie patterns, we only have this one that we created by tracing a bowtie and adding seam allowances. That’s what I recommend you do, too, because then you’ll have a model of how it all goes together!

We do sell the hardware, though!

Or, we can make a bowtie for you in almost any material we have, or whatever you bring in.

On each of the bowties I added a little embroidery. It goes with the theme of the wedding,

Wait til you see my dress for the wedding, it’s beautiful.