Making bow ties

We are gearing up to share our super secret news with our close family members this weekend and I am knee deep in fabric trying to get the finishing touches tied up, and one of the details just happens to be these adorable bow ties. A while back I shared my fabric flower broaches and now with the bow ties we have a fun way to celebrate the gender with our family. As I said before, the idea is for everyone to pick either a flower or bow tie depending on what they think we are having and at the end of the party we will share if our growing bundle of joy is a miss or mister. One thing I know for sure is this baby likes to kick. Or punch. We have lovingly named baby our little kickpuncher for the time being because well, he or she sure likes to pack a punch.
But back to the bow ties, they are pretty simple and in fact I was able to start this project while we were sitting in the hotel waiting to move back home. All you need is a bit of fabric, a needle, tread and scissors. A sewing machine will make these even faster but quite frankly I am still afraid of my machine and prefer the hand sewing method.

-To start, you will need to cut small squares of fabric, about 4 1/2 inches sq. You can adjust size by cutting smaller or larger squares but anything above 5 inches seems to be too big.
-Sew the wrong sides of fabric together {shown below} about 1/4 inch from edge.
-Turn right side out and lay flat.
-To create the side edges I tucked the fabric inward and sewed along the outside of the fabric so that you can see the seem. See note below for more detail.
-To make the center piece, I cut a 2 1/2-3 inch by 1 inch piece and sewed along the edges to make a finished edge.
-To attach the center piece to the longer rectangle {the bulk of the bow tie} I cinched the middle and secured with a few stitches on the backside.

My sewing isn't perfect, clearly, but I still love how they came out. These are super easy to make and once you get the hang of it they are actually pretty fast to make, I think I can make about 4 in an hour while also watching tv. Not trying to take things to serious around here!

 *Note: If you look closely at the bottom bow tie I actually have two different sewing situations going on at the edges. I was testing out which one I liked better. On the left, I turned the seams inside out and sewed along the edge then flipped right side out. On the right, I tucked the seems in and stitched along the outside so that you see the stitching. I ended up liking this look better although the husband claims the left is the correct way to sew a bow tie. And he would know, he has quite a collection.

images by our designed life

Different sized bows for different sized necks. The little one looks adorable on the dog, I think I might have to make her a little elastic holder to fasten around her neck, who says a girl can't wear a bow tie. Even if she is a dog, she will feel fancy!