The Tie Dress

  Hello Readers. Hello Readers. It is time for the annual Dressember Fundraiser. What Is Dressember? They are an organization that works to fight human trafficking and forced labor in the U.S and all around the world.   Since 2013, Dressember advocates have raised over $20 million to support International Justice Mission (IJM) and its partners. I will be wearing and refashioning dresses all month in honor of this mission. You can learn more at Dressember.org

 I have been wanting to make a dress out of ties for at least a year. I have been collecting ties at every thrift store and clothes swap I have visited. I am wearing dresses all month but you can also wear ties. Sometimes dresses don't work for you or your daily activities but maybe a tie would work. Today I am wearing both at the same time. 

A fun dress made of men's ties.

I have been collecting ties from thrift stores and clothes swaps for a year or so. I also took a couple from my husbands closet. (Shhh... don't tell.) I gathered all the ties I had on-hand and spread them out on my sewing table. I tried to scatter the colors and designs to get a lot variety from the arrangement. I didn't want striped patterns next to striped patterns or plaid next to plaid. I used 24-25 ties all together and tried to mix the colors all around as well. 

 

I wanted to sew the ties together. I wanted the wide ends sewn to the wide ends and the narrow ends sewn to the narrow ends. I put the ties with the right sides or the front of each tie, facing each other. I sewed the sides of the ties to each other using my serger to start. I broke so many needles that I switched to the sewing machine. You can use what you like but I think the sewing machine was better for this project. 

 

I sewed tie after tie together like this. This took a little while. When the wide ends of the ties are all sewn together and they will make the bottom of my dress.

 

All the wide ends of the ties will make a great A-line shape for the skirt of this dress. It wasn't difficult to sew but as I sewed, the ties got heavier and heavier. This piece is the back of my dress. It was 11 ties wide. I had to hold it up to myself to see if it was wide enough. I ended up adding another tie just for some extra breathing room. The ties are all different sizes. Some are wider than others. You will need to check your measurements and measure how wide your ties are when you sew them together.

 

This is the front of my dress. I made 2 separate pieces and clipped them together in the center of the skirt to check the fit. I wanted to check the size of each piece together. When I put them on my dress form I could see that one side was more narrow at the shoulder and added a tie to that side to make it even in width. I sewed the center seam of the skirt together and kept the low v-neckline. I can wear a shirt under it, this made it easier to make the dress fit and not need to be perfect in the waist and bust measurements. 

 

I put a long zipper in the skirt on one side. The zipper connects the front and back pieces. I sewed the zipper to the front of the ties, one at a time.

 

This is a look at the inside of the dress where the zipper is located. I used light thread so it would show in the picture. The front of the zipper is sewn to the front of the ties. The sewing is hidden in the dress when it is worn. 

 

I sewed the other side of the dress by connecting the front piece and the back piece together with the ties facing each other. Now I had a dress shaped piece.

 

This is a look at the back of my dress at the shoulders. The ties were much taller than I needed for my dress. I cut the narrow ends of the ties off so that the top was at my shoulders. I used sharp sewing scissors to cut through all the thick ties. 

 

I pulled one side of the front of the dress to the back. It came over the shoulder at an angle and I cut it so it matched where the back piece was cut across the top. I wanted to sew the front to the back across the cut edges.

 

I used my serger to connect the shoulder seams. The needles kept breaking so I moved to the sewing machine. 

 

The sewing machine worked much better. I broke a couple needles on my machine too. The ties are thick and the whole dress was a bit heavy to sew through but it was worth it. 

 

The front and back are sewn together across the shoulders and all the raw cut edges are hidden inside the dress.

 

The dress fit the dress form well, but the side of the dress stuck out a bit. 

 

I wanted to put in a tuck to make the front of the dress fit better at the sides. I folded the edge to see how much needed to be removed. 

 

Here is a look inside the dress. I folded the side of the dress where I wanted the tuck and sewed a narrow triangle. This will make the side of the dress fit much better.

 

I cut the tuck out because the material were so thick. It was too lumpy to leave there in the dress. 

  

 I sewed along the cut with a zigzag stitch to keep it from fraying. Over time it would get more and more frayed in the dress.

 

The tucks made the bodice curve along the bust and fit nicely. 

 

There was so much color and pattern in this dress and I didn't want to wear a shirt that distracted from my fun tie dress so I thought a black shirt was the best. Thanks for reading along with this project, now go make something fun for yourself.