Father's Day Bow Tie

Happy Father's Day!

I decided to sew my dad a bow tie this year, and I'm super excited that I actually succeeded! (If you've been following the blog for a while, you know perfectly well that I'm still a beginner sewist.)

To make the bow tie, I used a free bow tie sewing pattern from Sew Like My Mom, a quarter of chevron print cotton fabric from Joann Fabrics, some iron-on interfacing, and my sewing machine.

I started by making a tester tie out of muslin and it worked on the first try, so I felt pretty confident moving on to the real chevron fabric.  I'm sure everything would have turned out fine if I had skipped this step, but I just don't feel comfortable cutting into cute fabric without being positive that I know what I'm doing.  Perhaps I'm a tad overly cautious?  Perhaps.

Anyway, I moved on to the chevron fabric and made the awesome bow tie shown above.  The pattern and instructions from Sew Like My Mom were great.  Everything was clear and concise, so I never got confused.

The bow tie is currently wrapped up and waiting for my dad to come home and open it!

I have a couple of notes about the making of this bad boy:

1.  After I had sewn the tie together and it was still inside out, I learned the importance of being very gentle when using a knitting needle to turn the tie right side out.  I tried to force it at one point, and I accidentally poked a tiny hole in the fabric with the tip of the knitting needle.  Ugh.  Lesson learned.

2.  I also learned that I'm not very good at making sharp corners.  If you look closely at the picture below, you can see that the corners of the tie are slightly rounded.  I sewed nice sharp corners with my machine, they just didn't stay that way when I flipped the fabric right side out.  Do you guys have any tips on how to do it properly?

Teeny tiny flaws and all, I'm really happy with this bow tie, and I can't wait for my dad to open it!

Once again, happy Father's Day!
xoxo
Laura