Because I was working on this
You may well ask what in the name of heck it is, and I will answer that question right away.
It should be, with a bit of good fortune, a waistcoat made out of six neckties braided together.
To make it, you line up three neckties parallel to each other, then weave three more neckties in at the top and bottom, pin them, and then whipstitch them together along the long edges (except in the middle where your head will go). It’s held shut at the sides with buckles and gros-grain ribbon tapes.
Fine, fine, if you want proper instructions, here’s what the Bernina Creative Sewing Magazine, Autumn/Winter 1994/5 tells you to do:
Easy-peasy, right?
Well, we shall see how it will look when it’s all done but I must say I am enjoying the look of the silks together. I’m being very careful in whipstitching the ties together so that if I should ever wish to restore them to necktie use, I can pick them back apart without too much effort.
Two of the ties I found alongside the road yesterday when I was riding home from a pre-employment drug screen. The rest are either from Calvert or Jeff; both are gentlemen who have bestowed upon me a fair number of neckties and other accouterments of formal office-wear that no longer pertain to their daily lives.
I tell ya what, if I didn’t bike so much, I wouldn’t find half the free shit I find. Seriously, I could start a whole blog about stuff I’ve found while riding.
Hey, if I run thin of topics this month, I know what to do!
This looks gorgeous.
I’ve wanted to try making a dress out of ties for years– I have my dead dad’s fancy tie collection– but (a) I don’t have that much of a clue as to what I am doing, (b) I haven’t found really good instructions as to how to do it, and (c) I really don’t want to start cutting up the ties and then ruining them because I have no clue. It scares me!
You could use this pattern as a jumping-off point for the bodice and a simple flared skirt made of stitched together ties would complete the ensemble, if you wanted something akin to a two-piece evening-ish dress.