Men's Fashion: Bowtie Tutorial

Anyone with an eye on Levi knows how much I love a dapper, dandy bowtie.  Thanks to lovely, sweet, and talented Missus Marilyn for the elegant instruction on how to make these masculine frills.

These bowties are rather easy to make, so don't be over-whelmed by all the pictures.

I'm a visual learner so I tried to take a picture every step of the way.

Are you ready?

The main part of the bow tie

consists of two rectangles of fabric.

The larger one is 6" by 9",

the smaller one is 2" by 4".

If you haven't already ironed the fabric

now is the time to do it!

Next you cut and iron on interfacing to both

rectangles on the underside of the fabric

following the interfacing packaging instructions

cutting the interfacing to rectangles slightly

smaller then the fabric to avoid

bulky seems later on.

Set the smaller rectangle aside for a while.

Fold the larger rectangle in half the long way

and sew with interfacing on the outside.

Open to reveal fabric side and iron with

seam in the middle as shown below.

Bring the long ends together with seam on the outside

and sew for the 2nd time.

Fold the new seam inside and iron again

with seam in the middle.

Cinch the middle and hand stitch

or glue with hot glue gun.

I have done both and found that gluing

is much faster and still looks good.

Now take the smaller rectangle, fold in half long ways

and sew along side like you did with the bigger rectangle.

Turn fabric out and iron with seam in the middle.

Before stitching the smaller rectangle to the middle

attach elastic to back side of bow.

Once again, you can either hand stitch

or glue to complete this step.

Make sure when you measure the elastic

you give room for a collar so it's not too tight around the neck.

Before you're done attach the Velcro.

And there you are!

Notice I have two different sizes.

The measurements I posted above were for the

bigger bow tie which fits boys ages 3+.

To make a smaller one cut the fabric to

7" by 5" and 1 1/2" by 3".

Also, notice I added an extension to the smaller bow tie

below to allow easy adjustment for growth.

Happy sewing!