A new angle on ties

Good Morning all you internet lovelies.

Well I've been working more on those 'groomsmen' ties, although not all the groomsmen are men and not all the ties are for that side of the wedding party if you see what I mean. Groomsmen is a good enough term for you to know what I'm on about.

I decided to make a couple of modifications to see if I could make the tie a little bit more professional looking and to save a little time on manufacture. The first thing I altered was the way the tip was sewn. Looking at Dr J.'s ties I saw that quite a few had machine stitching, on the reverse side, at the tip to make for a neat corner. This seemed easy enough so I folded the material in half and sewed straight across from the point to the raw edge. All good, except that when folded over this gives you a 90 degree angle,which is fine and on checking again with Dr J. ties, half of them have 90 degree angles. But the pattern I have been using has a more acute angle and the seams don't run flat if you sew at 90 degrees. So out with the protractor. The pattern turned out not to be too accurate which is fine as everything is hand sewn so you can allow an 'ease' to make things fit. 

It varied between 83 and 86 degree, not much I know but I am fussy, between the main material pattern and the lining pattern. So I went for an angle of 85 degrees by marking a pin in the point and lining the protractor up with this and the centre fold. Did I say fold the tie in the same way that you cut it out, right sides together? Then put a pin in the board where the angle you want is (ie 85 degrees), 

Take away the protractor and put a ruler flush with the pins and draw a line on the material and sew along the line.

Press the seam and then before trimming and turning the right way round open out the end and press flat like the picture below. This makes it so much easier to open up the seam and flatten once trimmed and turned.

You then get a neat edge like this.

So next stage was to attach the lining to the ends, and this is where I thought I could also utilise the sewing machine and save a little time.

I lined up the material and lining right side together down one seam, with the seam line on the lining running 5 mm away from the seam line on the main material, so that when turned right way round it would lie away from the edge. 

I sewed from the edge to the centre point seam and then stopped. All good so far.

Then I tried to do the same on the other side and it wasn't easy the centre point was just too difficult to work round, so I sewed up as close as I could get to it.

With a little bit of fudging, it looks ok, but I still need to sew the point of the lining down.

So, I like the machine sewn point, but the time it takes to fiddle with the lining and machine sewing, it isn't worth it at present, and I will go back to handsewing the rest. If I make more at a later date though I may revisit that idea.

Here's both hand and machined. Since it all on the side that doesn't show, I don't think I really need to worry too much, but if anyone knows a neat way of doing it please let me know. May be it should be done before sewing the centre seam, now there's a thought. Well I might have a little play at that later, but that's it for the time being, more next week, as we get into single figures (weeks) before the wedding, still not panicking... yet. 

Hugs and Kisses

Ally