A few weeks ago,
Michelle from Little Gentlemen's Closet emailed me and asked if I would like to check out her tie patterns for little men. I jumped at the chance, because I had been looking for a tie pattern that didn't require a bunch of hand sewing.
I was thrilled when this pattern required NO hand sewing at all. HOORAY! Just what I had been looking for!
The tie pattern comes with a great variety of sizes - 6 months to 9 years - which is great for a mom like me with boys in a wide variety of age ranges. Sawyer's tie is the smallest size - 6-18 months - and it fits perfectly, and I think will last him through the suggested age range for this size. Quinn's tie is sized 3T-6, and Riley's was the largest size, up to 9 years.
The finished tie is two pieces - a neckband with a clip, and the actual tie portion. The neckband is adjustable, and Michelle ships you two clips when you purchase the pattern. Additional clips are available in her shop.
You tie the "dangly" portion around the neckband, and Michelle provides a youtube video on how to tie the tie. Honestly, it took me a solid 10-15 minutes to figure out how to tie the tie the first time I tried, but I think this is more my fault for not watching the whole video once first before I tried it. I'm too impatient - and the video is only two minutes! I recommend watching the video all the way through once before trying to tie. You should have no problem at all if you do that.
The "dangly" portion of the tie is actually two pieces, because the pattern is designed to fit on only a fat quarter of fabric. The result is that the finished tie has a seam in the middle. It took me a couple of tries when tying the tie to keep the seam from showing on the front of the knot, but this can very easily be eliminated if you use a regular quarter yard of fabric and just cut the tie as one big long piece rather than two pieces. I had plenty of fabric, so that is what I did with my second and third ties, and it worked great.
The tie portion uses fusible interfacing, and the only other change I made to the pattern was to apply the interfacing to my fabric before cutting. This is just my personal preference, to apply interfacing before cutting.
The boys LOVED their ties, and wore them all day on Easter. They got tons of compliments, and Quinn LOVED being able to pick out his own fabric. He's on a pink kick right now.
He told me "I look like DADDY!", which to Quinn, who is a SERIOUS Daddy's boy, was super exciting.
As you can see here, Riley's tie is a bit short, and skinny. Skinny ties are cool, right? The width of the pattern doesn't change as sizes increase - just the length. I knew going into this tie that it was likely to be a bit small for him, because Riley is giant. Even though he just turned 9, he is 5 feet tall and weighs in at around 92 pounds - much larger than your average 9 year old. Michelle offered instructions on how to make the tie larger for him, but ultimately I decided to sew the pattern as directed so that I could see the sizing. I would say it would fit fine for a less exceptionally sized 9 year old. :)
Wanna make some ties for your guys? Michelle is offering a 20% discount to readers of The Boy Trifecta! Head on over the Little Gentlemen's Closet and grab the pattern! Use code SAVE20 at checkout to save 20%. She also has a bowtie pattern, or if you don't feel like sewing, she'll make them for you.
Ultimately, this pattern is SUPER quick to sew, and results in a very nice finished product with NO HAND SEWING! WOO HOO! I love that the ties are adjustable and can grow with my boys. I think I will enjoy using this pattern to make ties for every special event we have. With the ties coming together in WELL under an hour (I think my last one took about 30 minutes, including cutting), there's no excuse not to!
Thanks, Michelle for letting me try out the pattern! I love my finished ties!
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and 
and 
. He really likes figuring out which types of folding make for the fastest airplanes, and loves fancy paper, so this set looked like the best of both worlds. 
books. I don't really get what is so fun or interesting about these books, but he really seems to like them, and I like owls, so I let him buy them. :) We're also into reading 
and 
Biographies are also hugely popular in our house. We like the 
and 
. These books actually have paper toys inside that you can pop out, fold up, and play with! It's like origami/kirigami, but cooler. They also have blank templates or discs with blank templates so they can decorate their own monsters, but don't have to worry about the logistics of figuring out how to cut and fold them - that work is already done for them on the templates. Love them. 
to go with his other 
set. I highly recommend these sets. He really seems to like them, and I feel like he is learning about how circuits work when he plays with them, which is something I can absolutely NOT teach him about. Electricity and circuits baffle me, which is why I am a sociologist and not an electrical engineer. 
? It gets sort of mixed reviews, with most of the criticisms saying that it is hard, and doesn't have enough pieces. We can always add more Legos (Riley recently got 
set and loves it), but is the difficulty appropriate for a 9-year-old? Anyone know?
