Ties
Last night during craft night, I actually finished the second of Nick's birthday ties. Only three months late! I don't have any pictures of the finished products, of course. Here is a picture of the fabric design I submitted to Spoonflower, instead.
I had them printed up on their silk crepe de chine. It is a very nice fabric, but not appropriate for ties, I think. I actually ended up buying two versions of the fabric. At first, I directly used The Purl Bee's father's day tie pattern. I followed the tutorial completely, and ended up with... well, it was not pretty. The interfacing must've been too stiff (although I got the lightest they had at Joann) so it was like a board. Not nice at all. Also, it was quite short. So, when I tried undoing it and ended up with a frayed mess, I wasn't too upset.
I redid the ties, adding a few inches to the length. Because two ties only take up about half a yard, I filled up the other half with Eric's Victorian Von Doom cravat. Cravats are a lot easier to make than ties!
Because the first tie was so stiff, I got some crepe-backed satin (Love the stuff! Is that wrong?) to back the ties and cravat. The cravat turned out ok, I think, but the ties were a bit floppier than I liked. Also, since it was silk on one side and delicate synthetics on the other, I was not able to go with my usual method of making things look good -- ironing the hell out of it.
But! Nick is a gracious gift receiver, so I feel ok about them after all. I have two handkerchief sized squares to match the ties, but the silk is *really* not suited to handkerchiefs. How can they be rescued?