Christmas Ties

Dave and I have decided that since Jed is now two, he's old enough to wear collared shirts instead of polo shirts to church. Of course, if he's going to wear a collared shirt, he's got to wear a tie, right? I didn't want Jed to go the little-kid clip-on-tie route, however, and neither did Dave. Instead, I found three awesome ties at a thrift store for a dollar apiece and decided to scale them down for Jed.

Three beauties, tags removed and opened up, ready to be downsized.
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I ironed each tie open and began gradually bringing it in so the tie would be better proportioned to Jed's body. It was a slow process, especially with the first tie, and took some trial and error to get it right, but in the end, they came out pretty well.

I took the insides out of the blue tie on the right because it was incredibly thick. Even without the cotton support, it's still on the fat side. Once I had the ties pinned the way I wanted, I sewed them up by hand.

All sewn up and ready to go.

As you can tell, the ties aren't masterpieces from the back, but that's what the short end of the tie is for, right? To cover up my poor stitching!

Then I re-attached the tags to hold the short end of the tie down. I knew Jed would never hold still long enough for Dave to tie the tie once it was scaled down, so I followed my friend Alisha's advice and used velcro instead. The next step was for Dave to tie the ties for me and we measured them against Jed's body to see where they needed to fall.

The ties all tied and ready for the next step...cutting. Yep, I cut the ties in the middle of the loop and sewed each end shut.

Then I pinned on some velcro and sewed that on.

Voila! The finished product, ready to be paired with a dress shirt. The ties are still adjustable, since the short end slides freely through the knot. And there's plenty of velcro to accommodate for any neck growth that might happen in the future.

Jed and Dave modeling two of the ties on Christmas Morning.

And Jed showing off his fancy church clothes on Sunday afternoon. The neck of the tie is still pretty loose, so I may add some more velcro so it can be tightened even further. However, I like the rakish look that the loose tie and open shirt collar give Jed, so, maybe I won't fix it. Either way, he looks fabulous!