Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Elegance

I had just enough linen left over from the cravat/ascot project that I thought I'd create a bow tie from it. For this project I used a Brooks Brothers' bow tie as a model, but otherwise used no pattern or instructions. (For full disclosure, I did make a bow tie 4 years ago from a pattern and I remember some of the instructions... I may later post pictures of my first one to show what that looked like)

I'm too tired to write much of anything, so please enjoy the pictures and explanations along the way!

Cutting out fabric (4x identical halves, 2x identical non-fusible interfacing)

I started by sewing the end so that I would have a solid point from which to continue... I didn't pin this project very much, so this was essential

Completed first side of stitching, after this I flipped it over, which allowed me to make sure I was getting the fabric tension right on the other side as well

The hard part: turning it all right side out

Previewing finished product midway en route

Turned half vs. unturned half

Before turning, I trimmed the excess material

Also, I clipped the corners to allow them to be crisper

Part way through I realized that rolling the material appears to make it slide better in to the tube

Mostly done turning the second half

both sides turned, pre-flattening and ironing

I then compared it with the commercial bow tie

The mistake was assuming identical or longer length was necessary... as a result I built an extension...

Hemming unnecessary extension

Constructing extension

Finishing extension

Testing the bow tie (I pinned the back tighter)

As you can see, I've pinned the material back to the pre-extension size... as a result, I cut the material, overlapped them and did a zig-zag to cover the rough edges... not terribly pretty, but it's not visible, so that's fine.