Keep Calm and Carrion: Ties and apologies (twist that last syllable and it almost rhymes!)

Goodness, I fell off the earth for a few days there! But I'm back and have missed writing!

So today I wanted to talk about ties! When I was making Connor's outfit for my brother's wedding I wanted him to have a tie, but there was nothing at the local stores in his size. So I hunted around a bit. I have a couple of patterns from Fishsticks Designs that I love (it all started with a paper version of the Austin Lee Romper that I got from a destash and really, they have a a great variety of BOYS patterns (which are really lacking in the market -- hint hint pattern makers!!).

Anyways, their blog has this great free pattern for the The Totally Terrific Ties. They call it a tutorial, but its is really a great little pattern. It has pattern pieces and instructions to make three different sizes: 2-4, 5-8, and 8-14. 2-4 and 5-8 are sort of neat, they are the body of the tie and then either elastic or a band that it ties onto.

The pattern calls for velcro if you are using the band, but I found an alternative that I like better... (keep reading!)

Anyways, I made a Jake and the Neverland Pirates tie for Connor to match his shorts, and a matching set for my friend's son. Then Inara wanted one using my favorite batik, then Logan (the oldest) wanted an Avengers one, and then Cole wanted a flame one. The boys got real ties since they are a little older, and dad had to teach them to tie them. Who would have thought ties would be so popular with kids??

Well, my friend asked me to make some more boyish ones for her son, so I picked out some boyish prints.....

But this little man loves trains, so I kept my eye out while doing the mini-shop hop this last weekend, and found this:

These don't take a lot of material (for size 2-4 about 1/4yd of two fabrics for non directional prints, and you need like 1/2yd of each for directional, but can probably get 2 ties out of it - I'll explain why you need more in a minute).

The first ones I did, I used elastic for then neck and I found that even Inara at nearly 5 had trouble getting hers on over her head, so I decided to do the fabric band on the next ones, and these as well. I serge these, so I did the bodies of all the ties first...

And that left me with all the bands...

The pattern calls for 16" x 3 1/8" bands for the "velcro" option. I do mine at 3 1/4", but that's mostly because it's just a bigger line on my ruler. :) You see though, the Robot print and the fish and the Avengers were all clearly directional, so in order to have a 16" piece that results in the print going the right direction, so I round it out at 1/2". Since it is such a small print I think you could probably get 2 ties out of that amount and still have enough for the bands. but it would be close.

So then I sat down to sew all the bands... and I'm so picky about threads matching that I had to keep switching and switching...

Then I got to sit and relax to finish them out... what I do instead of velcro is use snaps. (I love how randomly useful snaps are...) And its fun to pick out snaps that will stand out enough that little guys can find them easily, but still match the prints... So here they are...

I'm pretty sure the recipient was thrilled with them, and I think I will do some up for the upcoming consignment sale that I am doing.

Here are some pics of other ones that I've done... the shorts in both pics are from Seamingly Smitten.