Years ago I saw a skirt in Nordstrom made of ties. I wanted to buy it for my daughter but it was $275 which made me quickly come to my senses and I kept walking. I couldn't get the skirt out of my mind though so I decided to make her one. The mister didn't have enough ties that I could steal so I checked ebay and ordered 200 ties for about $50. Here's a picture of her skirt that I made, which she loved but she eventually out grew it (it's a size 4) and years later when I was visiting her home I found it in her garage in a pile with things she "didn't know what to do with." (You can read more about how I made the skirt by clicking here.) Well I just couldn't let it languish there so I grabbed it and brought it home with me.
Those ties from ebay turned into a skirt and then they turned into an ottoman cover. It's one of my very favorite creations and we have it in our family room still! I love knowing that it's really a skirt (with just the removal of a few stitches it is!) (It looks a little lumpy/askew in the picture but that's just because Rosie jumped on it right before I took the picture and I didn't fix it...dang dog!) Anyway, you can probably guess I didn't use all 200 ties so I had a lot of ties left. They have come in handy over the years in many different ways.
I made little "purse pockets" that held a package of Kleenex for the ladies at church and a folded up church roster, which I still have even though half of the people have moved away or died! I made little Christmas pockets from the Christmas ties that I had and put special little treats in for the kids.
When I was asked to teach a lesson to the ladies at church I had this brilliant idea to sew the ties together end-to-end and roll them up into a big ball. During the lesson the ladies had to toss the ball of ties around the room, while hanging onto to a piece, so they were all connected. I thought I was so clever! After the lesson I rolled up the ties into the ball and took them home where they sat on my shelf for about 10 years.
With Corona time on my hands I decided it was time I made myself a tie quilt. I didn't think it through. Didn't think about taking the guts out of the ties to make things easier. Didn't think about washing the ties first either. I just started sewing the ties to a muslin foundation and I kept on sewing, block after thick block.
What I have ended up with is a quilt that weighs 6.5 pounds and it doesn't have the backing or binding on yet!!! It's like one of those weighted blankets and, if I do say so myself, it's spectacular! I love it so very much. It's silky as almost all of ties are made of silk (there are a few cotton and one or two polyester ties) and it will be incredibly warm.
I will have to hand-tie this quilt but until the shops open back up I have no idea what to back it with. I do know that I won't be putting any batting inside, it doesn't need another layer for sure! Rosie loves this quilt and insisted on having her picture taken with it, I suppose now she will think it's hers!
After all of my tie projects I still had about 100 ties so I thought that would be plenty for a quilt. I was wrong, yet again. Some of the ties (as you can imagine when you buy them cheaply on ebay) were actually too ugly to use; they had neon colors or weird words or pictures. Some of the ties were badly stained so if I could I would cut around the stains and use part of the ties. Also, some of the ties were incredibly skinny at the ends so they were not really useable either.
When I was about 3/4's of the way done I realized I didn't have enough long pieces of ties left. Due to Corona all of the flea/antique/used clothing stores are closed so I put out a request on Facebook to see if any of my friends would be willing to go through their husbands ties and donate a few to me. And they did! (Thank you Marsha and Nancy!) Since this already weighs so much I decided I couldn't make it any larger, as it is it measures 56-inches by 60-inches, so it really is the perfect lap size.
My tie quilt is now at the top of my "to do" pile. There are 4 quilts and one pillow in this pile (not counting the ones on the bottom of the shelf) in need of a repair of some sort and the rest are tops that need to be finished. Our lockdown will continue for another 2 1/2 weeks so I just might get one of them quilted and bound...hope springs eternal!
