Following an urge to hand-paint some ties for Father’s Day, I was feeling adventurous and wanted to first sew a tie by hand.  I found an amazing tutorial PurlBee posted for skinny ties that looked easy enough and decided to try it out. Since I am not very skilled on the sewing machine it was a bit of a challenge, however, with a little bit of patience, I figured it out and was able to create a great-fitting tie in a days time.  Since this first tie was going to be for my boyfriend, I made it to his liking – even skinnier than the PurlBee version and a neutral color. If you’re worried about Dad liking a super skinny tie, don’t worry, I altered the PurlBee pattern, so your result will not be as skinny as mine.

Now if you’re not feeling as adventurous as I was, don’t have a sewing machine, or not enough time to get your sew on, no worries!  This tutorial can easily be applied to pre-made fabric ties…just make sure to purchase relatively cheap ties, since mistakes can happen.

Materials Needed:

• Light/Neutral-Colored Tie (to create your own, follow the PurlBee tutorial HERE)
• Acrylic Paint
• Acrylic Textile Medium
• Paint Brushes (wide foam brush and fine brush)
• Optional: Fabric Stiffener

Before you start, a few things to note…

While I was creating my tie, I altered a few of the instructions since I knew I wanted to hand-paint my finished product.  So, if you’ll be using a typical linen fabric for your tie like I did, no need to follow the steps for the fusible interfacing.  Instead, some fabric stiffener will do.  With the acrylic paint and some stiffener, your tie will definitely take to the desired tie shape.

For the painting part, I found that the Martha Stewart Satin Craft Paint didn’t require the use of the textile medium.  However, with any other acrylic paint, I’d recommend using an acrylic textile medium to avoid having the paint make the tie too stiff.