necktie to bowtie tutorial

Yay! A new tutorial - whoop whoop!!

Today, I'm going to show you how to take an old necktie and turn it into a rocking bowtie brooch or barrette.

First, gather your supplies. You're going to need:

• an old necktie (in reasonable, but not necessary perfect condition)
• good, strong scissors
• a glue gun (it can be sewn if you don't have a glue gun, but I'm doing it the easy way)
• a work surface that won't get wrecked by rogue hot glue (here I am using a spare shelf from my fridge, but even an old magazine will do in a pinch)
• brooch pins - I got mine for a few quid on eBay
• a couple of pins with glass or metal heads (because the plastic ones can be a pain if the accidentally get melted with the glue gun... ask me how I know!)

Step one:

Figure out how big you want your bow to be. Here I am using the largest part of the tie and will have the point overlap in the front. Just fold it and give it a squeeze in the middle, play a bit with the proportions and when you are happy...

Step two:

First, turn on your glue gun so that it is warmed up and ready for step three. Unfold the right hand side and mark what will be the centre of the tie - here I folded it over to check to see if both sides would be about the same size:

 And cut the LONG tail off about 1/2 an inch from the centre point. Leaving the big end of the tie intact.

Step three:

Your tie should look like this now:

Put a pea-sized dab of glue between the backside and raw end of the tie and glue them together. **Don't run your glue all the way down the edge, we don't want to add extra bulk. 

 Now, put another pea-sized dollop of glue on TOP of the raw edge and stick down the other side of the tie. Remember that you've got some overlap here, keep your sides even!!

Step four:

If you are going to burn yourself with hot glue while making this, it will probably happen during this step. Be careful!!

First, on the back side of your tie, put a pea-sized dollop of glue smack dab in the middle:

Then pinch it towards the back. Hold it until the glue gets stiff (maybe 30 seconds?)

Now, place it on your work-top and push it down while pinching it - the point here is to make valleys beside your first fold.

In each valley, put a little dollop of glue (be conservative!!)...

... and pinch. ** Don't worry about getting a little glue in the middle, like I did. The whole centre part will be covered up

Repeat the process on more time from the other side.

Make valleys and add a dash of glue:

 And pinch (note the glue on my nail - yes, it hurt)

Now you have something that almost looks like a bowtie, complete with pleats!

You're almost done!!

Step five:

Find a narrow part of the tie that is in good shape, ideally with no visible seams. Here I chose the very end because the middle part of the tie was in pretty rough shape. Sometimes, I'll make a narrow tie from this end using the same technique as above. 

Cut this piece long enough to go around the bow gently and have some overlap for glue. 

 On the middle of the backside of your tie, run a vertical line of glue:

Starting with the cut edge, wrap you piece of tie around the bow, overlapping at the end and securing well with hot glue. Add your pin back (or barrette blank) and you are done!

FINI!