Knitting a Necktie

by DamonA2 in Craft > Knitting & Crochet

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Knitting a Necktie

I was recently invited to a wedding last minute and found myself stranded without a suitable tie, so I decided to make one, and after following this instructable, hopefully you can too!

This tie is really easy to make, only using knit and purl stitches, alternating them to form a seed sitch pattern.

Supplies

-Wool (I used a navy blue charity chunky)

-suitable knitting needles (your wool will determine what size you need, I used 5 mm needles)

You can use whatever wool you want to, this is your tie, I used slightly thicker wool because I was pressed for time (and because I was lazy ;-) ), the thinner the wool, the better the pattern will look, but the longer it will take to complete.

Starting the Tie

Start with a slip knot, and then cast on the amount of stitches you need, I started with 8 stitches, and the tie is about 5 1/2 cm (about 2 1/4 inches). You may need more stitches if you used a thinner wool or if you want a thicker tie, or less if you used a thicker wool or want a thinner tie. I used my old school uniform tie as a reference for the dimensions I chose, and I encourage you to do the same (use a tie you like the dimensions of as reference, knit a few rows and then measure, if you are happy with the measurements then keep going, if not start over, I undid and restarted this tie many times before I was happy with the dimensions).

As I stated earlier this is a seed stitch pattern, so for the first row, knit the first stitch, then purl the next one, and then knit one stitch, then purl one stitch, and keep switching between the two, knit one, purl one, knit one, purl one until the row is done.

Now take note of the last stitch of the row, If you purled the last stitch, then you will purl the first stitch of the next row, if you Knit the last stitch of the first row, then you will knit the first stitch of the next row. Now keep going, alternating your stitches, and repeating the last stitch of a row on the start of the next row.

Keep going until you have about 38 cm (about 15 inches), Now it's time to decrease.

The Decrease

Now we want to decrease the amount of stitches we have to about half, So I started with 8 stitches, at the end of this step, I want 4 stitches.

It is important to remember that you don't want to instantly decrease to 4 stitches, it should be a gradual decrease, so what I did was I stitched the first two stitches together and the last two stitches together, that leaves me with six stitches, I then followed the pattern for one row, then I again stitched the first two stitches and the last two stitches together.

To do the decrease, instead of repeating the last stitch of the previous row, stick your needle through the second loop first, then the first loop and perform the opposite stitch, so if the previous row ended on a purl, put the second and first loop on your needle and knit, and if the previous row ended on a knit, then put the second and first loop on your needle and purl, then follow the pattern until the second last loop, then put the second last and last loop on your needle and complete the pattern. I like to follow the decrease row, with a normal row, to make the decrease a little more gradual.

By the end of the decrease you should have half the stitches and width as when we started the decrease. The reason I made the decrease so drastic is because the tie is going to be a little thicker than a normal tie, so the knot will be quite thick and if we don't decrease this much , then the knot will be too thick and the tie just won't look right.

Finishing the Tie

Now that we have the decrease out of the way, we can resume the seed pattern properly again, you want to knit until the tie is the length you want it to be, an average tie is about 140 cm, or about 56 inches long.

Once you are happy with the tie, cast off the stitches and work the end pieces of wool into the tie, and there you have it, your very own tie, that you made yourself, not many people can say that you know! you should be proud of what you accomplished and wear your tie with pride, or you know gift it to someone special in your life, it makes a great father's day gift.

WARNING: this tie WILL make you the talk of the wedding (you know, other than the happy couple), you have been warned ;-)