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In The Cordial Churchman Studio

Hello! And welcome to The Cordial Churchman studio. Wish you all were here in person and could take a tour of where we make our bowties. Instead, we thought we would share a virtual tour today.

We create, sew, and ship all our bowties and accessories from a workspace in downtown Rock Hill, SC. We are about 20 minutes south of Charlotte, NC.

We are housed with other artists in a community art center that once was a federal courthouse. Being centrally located downtown, some of our employees walk or ride their bicycle to work on a regular basis.

Seven of us work out of the studio at different times. Over the next several weeks we are going to introduce them to you. If you were to come into the shop on an average day, you would see us reviewing orders, cutting fabric, sewing, packaging, and drinking coffee. Coffee is essential in the making of the bow ties.

On special days, we have magazines and newspapers coming in for interviews and photographs. We are also fortunate to have some of our clients come to our space to purchase bow ties. The local cable and internet company, Comporium, just instituted "Bow Tie Thursday" and we enjoyed helping some of the men select a tie. Last week one of our loyal clients traveled hours out of his way to come and pick out some new bow ties while traveling from Washington DC!

Thought I would include a photograph of a busy few days. Since I not only write blog posts but help trace, sew, and ship bowties, I better get back to work! Thank you for coming on our tour, and we look forward to sharing more behind the scenes over the next two months.

Cheers!

Audrey

Pocket Squres: Compliment - Not match

Incase you are wondering how to rock the pocket square with your bow tie, the word is coordinate, not match.

Here's some combos we love from our upcoming summer collection (Available May 1)

Yellow Madras (Coming Soon) with Navy Gingham

Navy Dot Linen (Frederick) with Salmon Madras

Pink Gingham with Light Blue pinstripe Linen

White Pique, Navy Blazer, Blue and yellow striped bow tie and a yellow seersucker pocket square.  When wearing one of our lapel flowers, we think its best to go as subtle as possible with your pocket square.  The White pique is one of the best pocket squares because it adds interest and texture but can go with everything.

Milk and Sugar

Since this week has quickly become seersucker week after selling more seersucker bow ties than we thought possible, I thought I'd share a little about this special fabric.  Maybe I'm a geek, but I think it is pretty cool.  Here's what Wikipedia has to say:

Seersucker is a thin, puckered, all-cotton fabric, commonly striped or chequered, used to make clothing for spring and summer wear. The word came into English from Hindustani (Urdu and Hindi), which originates from the Persian words "shir o shekar", meaning "milk and sugar", probably from the resemblance of its smooth and rough stripes to the smooth texture of milk and the bumpy texture of sugar.

During the British colonial period, seersucker was a popular material in Britain's warm weather colonies like British India. When Seersucker was first introduced in the United States, it was used for a broad array of clothing items. For suits, the material was considered a mainstay of the summer wardrobe of gentlemen, especially in the South, who favored the light fabric in the high heat and humidity of the summer, especially prior to the arrival of air conditioning.

The fabric was originally worn by the poor in the U.S. until undergraduate students in the 1920s, in an air of reverse snobbery, began to wear the fabric.  Damon Runyon wrote that his new habit for wearing seersucker was "causing much confusion among my friends. They cannot decide whether I am broke or just setting a new vogue."

I'm Back with Gingham Fabric for Bow Ties!

I finally made it through my first trade show this past weekend. I'm tired but ready to move on with making more of my spring bow ties. I found some great ginghams that I've Added to my  STORE.  

And here are my seersucker ginghams

I placed an order for a few more madras fabrics as well so hopefully they will be here soon. It's going to be a fun season!

Lots of New Bow Ties - Wool Bow Ties, Madras Bow Ties and Silk Bow Ties

I've been working hard on these bow ties and am so excited to finally get them up here for you all to see.  Please visit the STORE (www.elliesbowties.com) and pick one out for yourself or your loved one.  The ties can be ordered simply by e-mailing me at ellielaveer@gmail.com.  Bow Ties are $23 each.  Please share this blog post with all your bow tie wearing friends.

Some of you have asked to see more pictures with more details of the ties so I've tried to accommodate you as best as I can.  When you click on the ties, it will take you to my flickr page which has sets of photos of each ties.  Also, I've had a few requests to make wool bow ties so I've added 3 wool fabrics to my stash.  I think they look great.  I hope you like them as much as I do.

Ellie's Bow Tie Club Flickr Group

Do you have one of my handmade bow ties?  If so, join the club.  I've started a flickr pool for all of you.  Please upload your photos and add them to the pool or e-mail me (ellielaveer@gmail.com) so that I can add them.  Also, If you want, add your comments about your bow tie in the comments section so that everyone can know how much you like it.  I'm also going to add the pool to the sidebar so that you can have easy access to it.   I can't wait to see what you come up with! 

Cheers!

Bow Tie Onesie

As I was making this last night for Owen, my husband agreed that this shirt screams "My mom is a big dork".  Somehow, I don't really mind announcing that I'm a dork with children's clothing.  I asked my 3 year old if he wanted a bow tie shirt and he said no.  Maybe a neck tie shirt for the big guy?

The best part is that even when he's really mad, I just look at him and laugh because he's so darn cute.

Handmade Bow Tie from Neck Tie

Andy found this rather ugly neck tie at the thrift store.  Today I turned into a rather cute bowtie.  This was actually my first time sewing with silk.  It was rather slippery, but I think I figured it out.  I'm excited to do a bit more of this type of work.  What do you think?

I'm sure Andy's glad that I've figured out how to tie these things by myself so that he doesn't have to get all dressed up for my photo-shoots.  He actually wore it to church tonight but we forgot to take a picture.

And I just had to show off these super cute guys.  We snapped this shot on the front porch after church today.  Can you tell that Andy dressed Deacon?  He looked sharp.