I think these bow ties are adorable. I was so excited when I thought about making matching father/son bow ties for father’s day! They were relatively simple to make and I found the fabric at Walmart for a pretty good price. The nice thing is that you don’t need much fabric at all! I don’t claim to be an expert by any means, but I’ll share a bit of step by step info with pictures if you would like to go ahead and make your own.
These are the fabric squares I found at Walmart. I got a bunch in all different colors and patterns! Each piece of fabric measures 18 in x 21 in and is the perfect size to make two small bow ties and two large bow ties (depending on what size you want to make them). Best yet, each square was only a dollar or so!
Once you have chosen your fabric, iron it well. This step isn’t absolutely necessary, but I found that it makes it way easy to work with. For the big bow tie, I cut out fabric roughly 4.5 in x 10.5 in, and for the baby bow tie 4 in x 7 in. Again, you can change up the measurements depending on what size bow ties you want.
Next, fold over the top and bottom edges and iron flat so they stay put. I folded over probably just about an inch on each side. Lastly, fold the sides in until they meet in the middle and overlap slightly.
1 and 2) Begin to sew the fabric right up the middle. I folded it a bit first and then sewed through a few times so it stayed scrunched up. (Like all of my technical terms here?)
3) I failed to take a photo of cutting out the “loop” for the middle piece (sorry!) but you basically just cut out a rectangle as you did for the bow tie itself, only smaller. Fold the edges over as you did before and iron so they stay flat. You can decide how wide you want the middle piece to be. I sewed the tie and loop together, but if you’d like you can sew them separately. I sewed them together to make sure my loop wasn’t going to slide around.
4) There you have it! Your bow tie, big or little, should look like this. Simple, right?
For the baby onesie I purchased sew on snaps and just sewed them in place. I liked this idea much better than trying to clip something on that I’m sure baby could easily tear off, and I didn’t feel like a strap around his neck would be safe. Picture two is big bow tie next to baby bow tie. (I did end up making an around the neck strap for the big one…but it wasn’t at all elegant and I kind of just threw it together. If you can find bow tie clips, I’m going to assume that to be much, much easier.)
Ta-da! A matching set!
If you want a more in depth tutorial, my original inspiration was from this site that I found on Pinterest. I used her tutorial as a guide and found it to be quite helpful!
There you have it! Father/son bow ties in a few easy steps. It takes a bit of practice at first, but once you figure it out you can really speed through them. Now all that’s missing is baby boy…I know Brinton wants him to hurry up and get here so they can finally wear them to church together!
Maria Simply Smiling 