The faker bow tie

The other day I made some cute little bow ties for my boys. I also only spent about $1.50 on two bow ties…so that isn’t too shabby. Not at all.

All you need is about a fat quarter of fabric (or less!)

So cut pieces in these measurements:

Main bow tie piece:  about 7-9 inches x 10-13 inches before sewing. I leave a range because sometimes I want the bow skinnier and sometimes I want it fatter. If the child is smaller I want the width and length to be smaller so the bow doesn’t overpower his face. Your best bet is to cut it out larger and then you can make it smaller if you need to.

Strap: about 1 1/2 – 1 3/4 inches wide before sewing and as long as needed to fit around the child’s neck. I take the circumference plus a couple of inches for the velcro and the collar.

The piece that goes around the middle of the bow tie is about 1 1/2 by 3-4 inches.

You also need:

two {matching} 1-1 1/4 inch long pieces of velcro

sewing machine and hand sewing needle – this project is half and half

your iron

coordinating or matching thread

For the strap:
Put a collared shirt on the boy you are making this for and measure around the collar.

Cut a piece twice as wide as you would like the finished product plus 1/2″, and the length you measured.

Fold the tube in half with right sides together. Straight stitch along the side with a 1/4″ seam.

Turn the tube right side out with a safety pin. Iron the strap with the seam in the middle…this will become the “back” of your strap. Zig zag or serge the ends. {You can add more length and sew them in to make a cleaner edge but I think it adds too much bulk under little collars so I just zig zag it.

Add your velcro. I recommend the sew on velcro. I bought a HUGE package of the sticky kind for another project so that is all I have and I can’t justify buying more velcro until my stash is gone. So I just stuck mine on but…trust me, it is less secure. Sometimes it works fine and sometimes it eventually comes off so much that it loses it’s stickiness enough that I can sew it and not jam up my machine. I like to make my velcro a little long too so that it grows a little with them.

For the Bow tie piece:

Cut a piece twice as wide as you want the finished product plus 1/2″. Just like with the strap, fold, sew with right sides together and then pull right side out. Iron with seam at the back/middle.

Lay the bow tie piece down with the seam facing you. Mark the middle. Fold the ends inward to the middle, overlapping a little.

Thread a hand sewing needle. Cinch the bow tie in the middle and sew up and down through the middle a few times. Do not do it too tight unless you want the bow tie to be really skinny in the middle.

Tie off your thread. This is generally what it should look like at this point:

Putting it all together:

Lay the middle bow tie loop piece down. Lay the bow tie piece on top and then the strap right down the middle.

Wrap the loop piece around both the bow tie and strap. Tuck the visible raw end under.

Take your hand sewing needle and whip stitch this closed.

Then add some extra stitches under the strap to make sure the bow tie is secured to the strap.  Be sure that you only grab the first layer of the bow tie so it doesn’t show through the front.