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Custom Tartan Bow Tie

Over christmas season, I had quite a few girlfriends and wives who wanted to buy bow ties for their loved ones. Here is one such bow tie. She ordered the Sutherland wool tartan from a scottish weaver and mailed it to me to turn into a bow tie and pocket square.

While I don't have intentions of selling pocket squares, sometimes I say yes when asked. Usually I tell people to buy them from Kent Wang who makes especially wonderful pocket squares, but this was an unusual circumstance because it was custom fabric.  It's kindof fun to make these because it gets me away from my sewing machine.   

He actually wrote a comment here on the blog when he received it:

Ellie,
I just got my Christmas gift from my girlfriend- the Ancient Sutherland Tartan bow and pocket square. Fantastic work, again.
I'll be sure to send a picture when I get to wearing it.
Thanks and happy holidays!

Let's hope he sends me the picture.  I'd love to see it!

I made this pocket square while watching Last Days Of Disco on hulu.  I'm kindof a sucker for those Whit Stillman movies although since there's so much dialogue, sometimes it takes me an extra viewing or two to catch it all.

Welcome to January

December went by in quite a whirl. Christmas was a very lovely time and we greatly enjoyed the magic of the holidays. I worked very hard to get caught up and there was actually a few hours on Dec 30th when I was completely caught up with my bow ties orders and my house was clean! It really was a miracle.

We spent almost all of Christmas week playing with our new set of wooden blocks and train track expansion packs from IKEA.  I'm finally learning that if I make up a train track wide enough for both of my boys to lay inside, they tend to get along great and play trains for a long time.  I just love these classic wooden toys.

One of the handmade christmas gifts this year was this funny robot towel robe that I made for Deacon.  He's always very particular about his towel not falling off after his baths and this solves all of his problems.  But I agree that it's pretty funny looking!  When I showed it to Andy, he just laughed and said it was cool, but one of the most ridiculous things he's ever seen!  I felt vindicated when Deacon wanted to wear it for about 24 hours straight the first time he go to use it.

I just used an old towel and some robot fabric I had for the appliques.  You can find the extremely simple tutorial HERE.  I think we'll get some good use out of it this summer at the pool too.  

I've been thinking about this poor little blog and my lack of attention to it over the past few months. I have plans for so many blog posts to write over the next few weeks. I have lots of new bow ties to share too. I'm planning to have my online Store ready for spring by the beginning of February. You're going to really love all of the beautiful madras and seersuckers I have for summer.  Join the MAILING LIST for an e-mail reminder when the store is updated, and if you have any ideas for what you would like to see in my online store for the spring, please e-mail me at ellielaveer@gmail.com.

Feedback from You

I really have the greatest customers ever.  I love it when you e-mail me when you receive your ties.  It makes me smile to know that you're so happy with your bow ties.  Here's a couple of e-mails I received in the past couple weeks:

"I received my Madras Plaid bow tie in the post today, and I couldn't stop smiling —it's perfect! Looking forward to wearing it to my holiday party on Friday. Thank you so much!"

"Hello Ellie, my lovely tweed bow tie arrived today here in the UK. I shall wear it at my next gig here in the North of England, gosh it is cold here at the moment, just as well i have this nice warm tweed tie! My wife said the tie makes me look cute :-)"

And here's a couple recent photos of very handsome gentlemen wearing bow ties (and one neck tie) that I've made. These first two are from some customers that wanted matching ties for an anniversary party. Aren't they so dapper?

Here's a neighbor of mine who may be one of a handful of guys in his high school who can tie a bow tie. He's a big USC Gamecocks fan so this bow tie was right up his alley.

Thank-you everyone for sending me pictures and feedback. I love it so much. It's so helpful to know what you like and what you want. And to see how other people besides my husband look in these bow ties.

Wool, Silk, Gingham and Corduroy/Velvet Bow Ties

I've just finished a bit of a marathon in the bow tie factory.  When the kids went to bed, I went to my studio and made 10 bow ties!  That's a lot for a Saturday night.  I'm just excited because I've recently gotten some new fabrics to play around with.

Here's an new houndstooth that I'm in love with.  This tie is made in the narrow butterfly style.  I'm already trying to think of something I can make for myself with this fabric - maybe a scarf.  I really love everything about it.

This bow tie is a nice lightweight 100% wool tie with dark purple/blue, red and beige.  I kept going back and forth on this fabric, but I'm glad it made its way into my bag.  I'm already wishing I'd bought more than 1 yard.

I purchased these three gingham fabrics from a friend of mine.  The first two are University of Clemson and University of South Carolina colors.  Two big rivals here in our state.  While I don't really want to get too much into the college/novelty ties, I think it's fun to offer these.  The cool thing is that you don't really have to be a fan of these teams to wear these ties.  The red gingham is a seersucker fabric that I'm just in love with.  It's the nicest seersucker I've ever felt.  And I have lots of experience with seersucker.

These next five are all silk and were converted from neck ties.  I'm going to get these up on the store as soon as I can get my model aka husband to try them on.  

And now here's the real unique one:

This here is a ribless corduroy bow tie.  To me, it feels just like a velvet bow tie, but the fabric was more workable for making a bow tie, in my opinion.  I've actually had a few requests for this style bow tie already.  I'm not sure I want to make any quite like this; but I'm up for a bit of experimentation.  I'm still not sure what Andy thinks of it.  Here's more of a southern gentleman trad style.  Plus I think this is more of a northern city look than a southern  style tie (but I could very well be wrong!).

Check up with my online STORE to buy these and more bow ties.  

Sunday's best.

I thought I'd share these cute pictures we snapped on Sunday evening after church. My boys are so adorable - all three of them.

D has on a candy cane bow tie and O has one that I made out of a men's neck tie.  Andy never wears a bow tie to Sunday church because it looks really weird with his preaching robe.  You wouldn't believe what a feat it is to get these boys dressed for church on Sundays.  Especially since O (almost 2) runs as fast as he can in the other direction when you try and put clothes on him.  You'd never know how wild he is looking at that sweet smile.

Gift Certificates Now Available

So I've actually gotten 2 e-mails within the past few days which have said something to the effect of:

"My boyfriend is obsessed with your bow ties and I want to buy him one".  

So I've decided to add a gift certificate to the website so that if you can't choose, he can come back later and choose his own.  Or, he can mail me his neck tie to convert or even his own fabric.

So hop on over to the STORE and buy your favorite man a few gift certificates.  Now I'm working on a printable certificate that the purchasers can use to represent their gift. 

And for those who may be interested- I'm working on a Carolina (scarlet and black) and Clemson (pruple and orange) gingham bow tie.  They are really fun.  I've also ordered some lovely seersucker and madras (straight from India) for the spring and summer.  I can't wait for summer to come back!  Cotton bow ties are wonderful.

Thanks Trip!

Recently, Trip from A Trip Down South reviewed one of my bow ties.  Please check out his website and what he had to say about his red wool tie.  Doesn't he look sharp?

A Summer Wedding with Seersucker Bow Ties

I got a surprise in my inbox this evening.  Here's what it said.

"Dear Ellie,

I wanted to thank you so much for the bowties for our wedding back on August 15th.  They were absolutely gorgeous.  The men & boys got so many compliments on them, and they really went perfectly with the theme of our wedding. "

Be still my little heart - these boys are adorable!

Wow!  These pictures are great.  I'm so happy that they sent them to me.  I love how they took more casual suits for their and really made them look classy with the freestyle bow ties.  They all look so cool and comfortable.  I wonder how many of these gentlemen knew how to tie one before the wedding.  It would have been fun to see them all trying to get them to look just-so the morning of the wedding.  

I'll be working on more seersucker bow ties and neck ties for a summer wedding over the next month.  I was able to custom order fabric to match their dresses from Thread Design.  So fun!  And to my grooms and brides- thanks for thinking of me!

 

Three New Bow Ties

I'm still trying to work out the design on the new store, but since I don't have any real design skills I'm going to have to wait for someone to make something up for me.  But the store does seem to be working well.  I just added three new ties to it.  Here are the images - you can click on them and they will take you straight to The Cordial Churchman Store.

I'm still working through some neck ties that some of you have sent me to convert.  It is so fun to see the variety of ties that come through to me in the mail.  Once I work my way through those, I'll get you some new ties.  It is my goal to have my store fully stocked before I have my Thanksgiving break.  Also, I'm sorry for the confusion but the ties on this website are also still for sale - I just have to take new pictures to list it on the bigcartel store and you need time to do things like that!  But if you want any of the ties there or have any questions - just shoot me an e-mail at ellielaveer@gmail.com

Good Evening All.

-Ellie

I'm moving

I've spent hours over the past few days listing my bow ties on a real online store that I've created.  I hope it will be easier for you to navigate through this site and view the pictures and purchase the ties on the spot.  This website is sortof a work-in-progress and I don't even have all of my ties listed on the store.  But I do have a few new bow ties that I've made (like the one pictured below)  listed.  So please check it out.  

[caption id="attachment_529" align="aligncenter" width="300" caption="http://thecordialchurchman.bigcartel.com"][/caption]

Again, the web address is http://thecordialchurchman.bigcartel.com  - Please check it out, tell your friends, purchase a tie or two and come back soon.  Also, don't be afraid to e-mail me for custom orders and questions.  My e-mail address is ellielaveer@gmail.com

Cheers.