Necktie’s have beautiful colors and patterns, so why only use them for Men’s fashion! I asked friends and family to look in their closets and donate any unwanted ties they had for this project.

Between donations and a few dozen trips to the thrift store the collection was finally large enough to get started.

My first idea was an area rug. I sewed together each tie for the thin end to the pointed end from a circular middle.

For the middle I cut out a round piece of plastic and sewed the fabric of one tie over top to match.

The ties were very long. Most of them needed trimmed, so I took all the scraps from the thin end of the ties to recover the ottoman. FYI I didn’t remove the the side padding from the ties so they were very thick. I broke about 2 needles on the sewing machine sewing the rug together before realizing I needed a denim needle. The ottoman cover went much faster!

Using acrylic paint, I painted the bottom half of the ottoman black to compliment the ties.

The scraps from trimming the rug also made a nice decorative border:

 The last project was a dress. I had seen so many different necktie dresses from other artists I wanted to try my own. I laid out all the leftover ties, but instead of a complete circle I kept the long, thin, ends for the top half of the dress and sewed a zipper into the seam to create a tie “tube”

The natural shape of the ties created a flared out skirt without other seams. A green necktie was used to hem the top and create straps.

I use all three of these projects in my life and have found they make great conversation starters. Which project do you like best?