How To Make A Bow Tie: A Step-By-Step Guide With Free Downloadable Diamond Tip Pattern

Things You’ll Need To Make A Bow Tie

Learn How To Make This Bow Tie:

• At least ¼ of a yard of fabric (this should make roughly 1-2 bow ties)
• At least ¼ of a yard of medium weight interfacing
• Sewing machine
• Thread to match your fabric color
• Straight pins
• Sewing Pattern (feel free to use mine or make your own)
  • Free Bow Tie Diamond Tip Pattern
• Scissors (rotary cutter and mat if you can swing it)
• Pen or pencil
• Chopstick or something of similar size and shape
• Ruler or measuring tape
• Iron & ironing board
• A couple of free hours 

Why Start Sewing Yourself?

As you can imagine, crafting something with your own hands provides a sense of gratification difficult to find elsewhere. There’s something about taking raw materials, whether they be wood, metal or (in this case) fabric, and turning them into something new.

Maybe that thing is useful or practical, maybe it’s just creative and fun. A case could probably be made that a bow tie is all of these things, which is partly the reason for our delve into sewing as a hobby.

Why Make A Bow Tie?

Interested in making your own bow tie yet? Well, you should be because bow ties are awesome and making things with your hands is manly! Combine those two incontrovertible facts and you’re in for the most genteel albeit masculine couple of hours you’ve had in a fortnight.

So brace yourself, because we now present you with our trial-by-error research on how to sew your own bow tie!

Complete Step By Step Guide To Making Bow Ties

Step 1 – Find Some Fabric

First off, go get yourself some fabric. This can come from a chain fabric store, your local garment district, your grandmother’s sewing stuff, whatever works. We find that decent mid-weight cotton is a great material with which to start.

Anything lighter and your bow will lack that full-body look and, gentleman, nobody wants that. Once you have your fabric, pool all your working materials together (along with the beverage of your choice) so you can get started.

NOTE: most if not all images are clickable to make larger

 Step 2 – Pattern Cutting

Now the real works starts. We hope that beverage wasn’t too stiff, because you’re about to use sharp tools. Lay your pattern down on top of your fabric and cut around the perimeter so you have a piece of fabric the same size and shape as your pattern.

Do that until you have four equal pieces. While we’re here, we’ll mention that this pattern was made with a 5/8” seam allowance in mind. Meaning, if you took the pattern as is and measured 5/8” in from every edge, that’s how big the actual bow tie would be once it’s sewn.

Repeat that process with your interfacing until you have eight parts total: four of fabric and four of interfacing. None of these need to be cut perfectly. They’re just rough cuts that give you enough room to sew to your final size, with that 5/8” seam allowance we mentioned earlier.

Step 3 – Applying The Interfacing

At this point, you’re about done with the sharp cutting tools. Now it’s time to get into some hot steam action. That’s right fellas, it’s time to break out your iron to fuse your interfacing to your fabric.

While you should follow the instructions on your interfacing, generally they have you iron the adhesive side of the interfacing to the “wrong” side of your material (the one opposite the side you want to see when you finish it) for something like 15 seconds while it’s covered by a damp towel. Just follow the instructions and you’ll be fine (it’s a good idea to try a test piece first).

Once you’ve done that for each matching pair of fabric and interfacing, you should be left with four total pieces. Each should be a piece of fabric with interfacing fused to the “wrong” side of it, so the “right” side of the material is visible on the other side.

With us so far? Good because you’re just about to start the actual sewing, which is when the chest hair starts sprouting (your results may vary).

Step 4 – Sewing Pattern Ends Together

At this point, you’re going to be taking two ends and sewing them together to make one long half of the total bow tie. This part can be a little tricky as you want to get the length right the first time; it’s difficult to go back and fix this later.

The easiest method we found is to use an existing loose bow tie that’s your size and lie it next to your two ends, wrong side up, so that they match in length (while accounting for that 5/8” seam allowance). Alternatively, you can use a pen to mark where your actual seam should be.

Anyway… once you’ve made your mark to indicate where to sew the two pieces together, go ahead and run those through your machine so you end up with two long pieces.

You should have something like this (and by “something like”, we mean “exactly”) at this point, with the two middle sections sewn together. Feel free to trim the extra material off after you’ve sewn them together. It’s not really necessary to keep, and will probably just get in the way later.

Step 5 – Trace Pattern / Sew Line

Alright so the next part is optional but we found it quite helpful, especially when we were first got started and had basically zero experience in sewing at all.

Essentially, you want to trace the shape of what your actual finished bow tie will be on the “wrong” side of one whole length of your material. This gives you a really clear line to follow when you’re sewing and makes it super simple to make out your corners and curves. We made our own template out of a cut-up brown paper bag which you can download here, or you can make your own.

Alternatively, if you’re confident enough to sew the whole thing by eye, knowing that you need to stay exactly 5/8” (or whatever your seam allowance is) away from the edge, have at it. Nobody (except your elitist sewing friend) will judge you for using the cheater way, though.

Whatever you decide to do, the next step is to pin the two “wrong” sides together so you can start sewing them together.

Did you feel another chest hair sprout…?

Step 6 – Sewing Body Pieces Together

Before you fire up the machine and start zipping away, take a minute to find a good starting point. Ultimately, since you’re sewing them together with the “wrong” side facing out, you’re going to need to flip it inside out before you’re actually done.

For instance, we start about 1” away from the middle point and then sew all the way around, stopping about 1” away from the middle on the opposite side. This leaves a 2” wide opening that you’ll end up flipping it inside out through.

Something around here works (picture below).

Now, just follow your seam allowance around the whole thing.

Don’t forget to stop a couple of inches before where you began.

You’re almost ready to flip the whole thing “right” side out at this point. We suggest making a quick trim to the extra material around your seam before doing so. You don’t need to get super close or anything, you just want to take off some excess material. You’ll understand why this is important in the next step.

Step 7 – Chop Stick Magic!

Remember that bit early on in the “Things You’ll Need” section, when you said to yourself, “what the hell do I need a chopstick for while making a bow tie”? This is it. It’s time to flip the bow tie “right” side out.

This can take a little practice but once you get it, it’s a snap. And the chopstick helps quite a bit. You’re basically just using it to gently force the ends through the middle 2” gap that you left. Just don’t push too hard or you’ll pop a stitch, which will only result in frustration.

Here’s the basic sequence of events to get it turned completely inside out.

1 – “dip” end in so that you can start to push the fabric through.

2 – Gently push fabric down and through inner section.

3 – Keep pushing until bow tie tip emerges from the opening.

4 – Gently pull/work the rest of the fabric through.

5 – Finally, repeat the process for the other side of your bow tie.

Step 8 – Iron Flat & Close Final Opening

At this point, your bow is going to be incredibly wrinkled, from cramming it all through a tiny hole with chopsticks. No sweat, you got this. Just break out your trusty iron again and give it a quick steamy second so it’s nice and flat.  All you have left is to take care of that 2” opening.

So at this point, you have a few options. You could spend some time closing the opening by hand with a blind stitch so that it looks perfect under your collar where nobody will see it.

OR…

You could tuck the edges in, run a quick seam across that bad mother, and give it some character (why not try a contrast color…for your own personal touch, as it were). Or maybe it’s just faster and you’re lazy. Whatever. It’s not our place to judge.

Final Step 9 – Admire your Work

That’s it, you’re done!

All you have to do now is pour another drink, bask in the glory of your awesome powers of creation, and think about what to make next.

What Next?

Now that you’ve learned how to make a bow tie, why don’t you check out some of our related content?

• How To Make A Pocket Square
• Top 10 Best Bow Tie Brands
• How To Tie A Bow Tie
• How To Fold A Pocket Square
• Top 10 Best Cufflinks & How To Wear
• Bespoke Unit Suit Homepage