Blog

Two Toned Seersucker Bow Tie

Here's a fun new bow tie that I've added to my online Store - the Two Toned Seersucker Bow Tie.  This was a special request from a customer, but I loved it so much I decided to make it available to anyone who wants it.  Why not?  

Aren't you glad Easter is gone so we can start wearing seersucker again?  I'm thinking of making THIS dress for myself out of blue seersucker.  I think of making dresses all the time but it never seems to happen!

Samples of boys bow ties and neck ties

Here's my little man in his very own freestyle bow tie.  It was a little tricky trying to keep him still long enough to get it tied, but it also clips in the back so I don't have to re-tie it every time.  Doesn't he look so cute?  Like he's just come home from a dinner party.

It's amazing how good it looks all tied up.  It totally looks like the real deal, even on a child.

And here is Big Brown Eyes in a sample bow tie and a sample neck tie I made for a friend of mine who sells my bow ties through HER children's clothing boutique business.  We're hoping these fabrics sell well for Easter.  The top one is a 100% cotton blue and green gingham and the second is a seersucker blue and yellow gingham.   I'll try to get more children's things listed on the Store soon.  I have more fun children's fabrics I'm excited to play with.

Maybe someone will see this cute boy of mine and hire him as a model.  And make us rich.  Or at least pay for the cute kid's college.  Come to think of it, I put him in shoes too big for him today, and he got a nice strawberry rug burn on his forehead.  It may have been a modeling career-ending spill.

Patch Wool Scarf Now Available

After so many requests from gentlemen who have seen my husband's scarf that I made him for Christmas, I've decided to list this scarf on my store and make it available to you for the rest of the winter.  It's a timeless design and the fabric is high quality 100% wool and lined with soft corduroy.  I've made 5 available on my online store so please go there and snatch them up.  

[gallery]

If you love this scarf but aren't able to buy it at the time, please pass on the word on your favorite style forums and blogs.  You're welcome to use my images but please link back to this site or my store.  And as always, Thank-you for the support!

Edited 2-13 - The first five scarves sold within a couple of days so I've listed just a few more.  

Patch Wool and Harris Tweed Scarves

So in the past few months, I've made 3 scarves.  One gentleman came to me in the fall begging me to make him a patch tweed scarf and after a bit if coaxing, I agreed to patch together my first scarf.  It was pretty big - almost six feet long and a 12 inches wide.  But since he's in a colder climate, he wanted some heft around his neck. Here's a picture he sent me of himself wearing the scarf.

Then I thought I'd use some more of the wool that I had on hand to make my husband a christmas gift. This time I used a brown corduroy fabric on the reverse side to reduce some of the bulk. I'm sure you'll recognize much of this fabric from my bow ties.



I think he liked it.

My next patch scarf project has a rather interesting story. Another customer of mine had sent me some tweed he had acquired from Vintage Whistles, an online vintage clothing ship in the UK. All of the fabric was cut from un-wearable Harris Tweed jackets. He wanted me to make him some bow ties and a patch tweed scarf.

It was sortof funny working with vintage fabric from another country.  I was constantly sneezing from either the fibers or the foreign dust in the fabric.  Even when I was at the post office mailing them away, I kept on sneezing and the lady behind me kept blessing me.  I said "Oh, I'm just allergic to this thing that I'm mailing."  After I said that I realized that she probably thought I was absolutely batty.  I hope he likes the scarf and the bow tie though.  I'm not sure how he'll get those suckers tied into a bow, but that's his problem, not mine!  

As you may notice, I'm on a bit of a blogging streak!  Tomorrow I'm going to give you a sneek peek of the Indian madras fabrics I have for my spring/summer collection of bow ties.  

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.

Fabric Basketballs

We also had a great time on Tuesday making our favorite new food - Pizza Pockets.  Maybe I'll post about that next week.  It's a fun little recipe.

The Cordial Churchman Update

Good evening ladies and gentlemen.  This is the first time I've been on a computer for any length of time in a while.  A few days ago, my computer stopped working so it is now going to the apple hospital to hopefully be repaired.

I wanted to give you a bullet point-ish post though to remind you that I'm still around and tell you what's going on over here.

• I'm thinking of starting a mailing list to let you know when I update my online store.  Is this something you would be interested in?  Do you know of a mailing list service I could use - preferably something I can put in my sidebar?  Your help is greatly appreciated.
• My model/husband has been writing a masters thesis nonstop lately and I haven't really had a chance to get him to model the ties for me, but I promise, more converted ties are coming SOON - like within the next few days.  Some good ones for you Trad gentlemen.
• I'm planning a bow tie giveaway for the end of the month.  So be looking forward for your chance to get a handmade Cordial Churchman bow tie for free (!) and in the process help spread the word about my ties.  More info on that one in a few weeks.
• I've made more ascots, they actually are really fun to make and are so soft.  Some people have expressed interest so know that they are $23 and I'll be making them less often than the bow ties so put your bid in if you're interested. (ellielaveer@gmail.com)
• Apparently, tomorrow is Bow Tie Tuesday, so if you're a gentleman, get your bow tie on tomorrow.  E-mail me pictures if it is one of my ties.

I'll leave you with this cute picture of my little boy wearing a romper I made for him a couple of weeks ago using my serger.  It turned out pretty cute.  This was my third time using this pattern.  Do you remember the last time I made a romper?  It was only 4 months ago and I used the leftover seersucker fabric to make my husband a bow tie (my first tie).  It seems like forever ago - I've made hundreds of ties since then!

Cheers,

Ellie

Playing around with my Serger

So yesterday, I finally got to play around with my serger.  I think this machine is about 30 years old.  It was most likely purchased at a garage sale to be fixed up by my grandfather who loved to fix broken things.  You wouldn't believe how many sewing machines, sergers, clocks etc. my family found in his house when he passed away.  He had an amazing gift.  

I keep fiddling around with this machine and getting completely frustrated with my thread coming out of its track.  These things are not fun to re-thread.  So with my tweezers close by for easy threading, I pulled out my machine and went to town.  I figured out that I just need to be patient with the old thing. I can't treat it like I do my trusty sewing machine.  A steady  constant pressure on the foot gives it a nice even serge - too fast, or stopping along the way makes my machine skip stitches.   

I made something for each member of the family.  I got a wool scarf, Andy got a serged hankie - pocket square and the boys got place mats.  I'm looking forward to using this thing to possibly make my first dress this fall.  I can't believe how fast I can make things with this serger - the projects below took barely any time to make.

My goal is to make *something* that isn't a bow tie each day this week and share them with you.  I have so many projects I've been dying to try.  

Happy Monday!

-Ellie

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.

Two new super fun ties-

Ok, here are two ties I made out of cotton.  The first one used to be an Ann Taylor madras skirt and the second Ann Taylor pants.  Andy couldn't tell at first that the pink polka-dotted tie actually has two diff. patterns- one is white on pink and the other is pink on white.  It can be tied three different ways, I like the one with the contrasting (but not really that contrasting) knot.  What do you think?  I'm adding them to the store.

 [gallery]