Converting a fat tie to a skinny tie

[Tobus]

I have been talking about doing this for a while, but finally found a rainy day to get it done. I have 3 Robert Talbott ties that I really like, but they were 4" wide. That's just too wide for me, being a short fellow. I do better with skinny ties in the 2" to 3" range of width. So I decided to alter one of them from 4" to 2.5" wide (taking 0.75" from each side). Here's how I did it:

I'll preface this by saying I don't know if all neckties are made the same way, but this seemed pretty straightforward on mine. I started by removing the tack stitch that keeps the back of the tie held together. Once that was out, you can see that the tie is made with an inner canvas stiffener that's loose inside. The silk of the tie is simply folded around it, and there's a silk liner stitched in to form a sort of pocket, in which the canvas stiffener resides. It's the same on both ends of the tie. Note that one side of the tie (on the bottom of the pic) simply folds over, then the other side (top in the pic) has two folds.



To open up the tie further up its length, I had to remove a simple running stitch that was keeping the folds closed up the length of the tie. It was hand-stitched through both closure folds of silk as well as the canvas stiffener (but was not all the way through the outer layer of silk, so as to stay hidden). All I did was cut the termination end of the stitch and pull the thread out far enough to open the tie. Here's what the stitch looked like:



Since I wanted to narrow the tie by 0.75" on each side, I simply marked it on the canvas stiffener. Note: the stiffener isn't the full width of the finished tie. It's a bit narrower to allow for inner folds of silk. All I did was take 0.75" off of each side, tapering it back about 24" to where the flare of the tie started.



Then the scissors came out to narrow the canvas stiffener. Here's its new profile over the old folded width of the tie.



Next, I needed to press the old creases out of the tie to make it flat so I could start from scratch with new folds. I used the silk setting on my iron, and held a damp press cloth (thin dish towel) between the iron and the silk. Now it's flattened:



Then I found the points where I wanted to make the new folds for a finished width of 2.5". I did the first pressing on one side (again with a damp press cloth):



Note that the full width of the silk folds too far over to allow the second side to be folded. This has to be cut. But first, I wanted to go ahead and press my second crease for the other side:



Before simply cutting the silk, I turned the pocket portion inside out to reveal the hidden seams. Here's what it looks like inside-out:



I didn't need to remove the whole thing or alter it, except just to trim some width. So I folded turned it back rightside-out, laid the first fold where it belonged, and just sight-trimmed the silk to fit inside the second fold. The "right" thing to do would be to re-form the pocket with a hidden stitch like they had to begin with, but I didn't want to go to all that trouble. This is all going to be hidden anyway, so I simply cut it and hand-stitched it with a visible stitch. Note: my shaky hands are terrible for fine work like sewing, so my seam is nice and crooked. Doesn't matter, this will be hidden. This is just to stitch the silk liner back to the striped silk.



Then I cut away silk and stitched the other side with the same awkward amateur shaky-stitch. This will be hidden too, due to the fact that this side has two folds. The first fold (already folded below) will turn this underneath itself before the flap closes over the tie.



So, with the canvas stiffener in its pocket, I simply folded the tie to its final configuration, pressed it again for good measure, and re-stitched the running stitch all the way from where I had opened it back to the end point. Then I redid the tack stitch. You'll note below that my final fold has a bit of a wavy crease to it. I could have redone it, but it really doesn't matter. This is the back of the tie.

(to be continued in next post)