Monday, September 1, 2008



Making use of old neckties

A few years ago, my husband's office held an "Ugly Tie" Contest.  Everyone brought in an ugly tie from their past.  And I do mean UGLY!  There were some doozies!  A vote was held to determine the ugliest of them all.

Then came the real fun, for me at least.  The ties were passed on to me to make an art quilt.  I chose to use various New York beauty blocks.  After taking apart each tie, I carefully fused the fabric to fusible interfacing before paper piecing each block.  I did add some cotton fabric here and there so the quilt would be a good size.

Don't you just love it?  It just goes to show you, even the ugliest fabrics can be part of a beautiful quilt.  Have you made a quilt with neckties?  Send me you photos, tips, and stories!




2 comments:

Susan @ Blackberry Creek said...

Gorgeous quilt, Judy. But can you imagine those big polka dots as ties?

Just Jenn said...

I used to work in the second largest design studio for men's neckwear in the country. Every spring or so we'd sell off all of our strike off's (samples of colorways on silk for production approval and design direction). The quilters would come out in droves and snap those bags up! This was before I was quilting but it did give me a little bug. I kept bags of silk tie scraps around for *years*. I finally gave it up as a lost cause and gave them away at some point. Of course now I wish I had them back!