My friend Kelly's daughter Carly wanted to dress as a Hogwarts student from Hufflepuff house for Halloween 2004, but they were having trouble finding a black-and-yellow-striped tie for the outfit. So I offered to make one. I couldn't find any appropriate pre-striped fabric, so I tore some black and some yellow cotton into one-inch strips and sewed them together with quarter-inch seams to make a square of striped fabric. I based the pattern off of one of my husband's ties, with a little help from
this website. I made it a fair bit shorter than a typical tie, both because I didn't have quite enough fabric and because it was for a seven-year-old, and backed the whole thing with interfacing. It was a fun little afternoon project, and I think it turned out quite nicely.
