Toddler boy tie for $1.50!

It seems I have been on a bit of a hiatus.  I won't go in to too much detail but this is a time for celebrating, which is what got me back to "work" on making something.  Anyway, here is a tutorial on how to make a toddler boys tie.  It was super easy, super quick and super cheap!

Here is what you will need:

• 4 inches of whatever type of fabric you want.  Most bolts are at least 43"inches long but if you get a fat quarter this is not the case.  You will need approximately 3.75" X 38" to make the tie.  Even then it will be a little long but he will be able to grow and still use it for a while :-)
• an iron
• a sewing machine, or not.  There is minimal machine sewing.  

Cut the fabric, in this case I used a fat quarter so I had to cut 2- 3.75" wide pieces and sew them together to get my 38" length.  Mens ties are sewn in a diagonal this way.  Iron the seam to one side.

 Iron a quarter inch seam allowance on both sides

Notice the pen marks on the above picture?  Well this was to tell me where to iron next.  I wanted the tie to be 1 and 1/4 inches wide in the middle at the seam all the way down to the skinny side and 2 inches wide on the thicker side.  Start to iron out the tie not worrying about the points on each end yet.

Here is the ironing so far.  The lower part is the front and thicker part of the tie.  The ironing should just meet and not overlap.  Then when you get to the middle of the tie it will start overlapping all the way down to the end and thinner part of the tie.  Can you tell that it is overlapping quite a bit now?  In a mens tie, it would not overlap but be cut perfectly to just meet, but this is for a toddler now! :-)

Now for the corners.  I just folded them inwards and let them overlap by a quarter inch.  After you iron the lines in, flip in inside out and prepare to sew.  You will need the ironing lines to know where the point of the tie is.

Align the tie and start from the seam allowance and sew down to the point of the tie.  This will hold the point of the tie in place.  Do this for both sides.

Just like so and flip back to the right side and re iron it flat.

Here is the tie flipped back to the right side.

After you have re-ironed all your folds, neatly hand sew along the where the tie meets and overlaps and you will end up with this!  The hand sewing took less then the time of the episode I watched while doing it.  Better still... the WHOLE thing was accomplished in a single nap time! 

There has nothing in store or online that you will find for as cheap or stylish, so give it a go!

I might have enough navy blue gingham fabric to do a bow tie too, so win win win!