Necktie quilt block

Necktie or Bow Tie

May 13, 1933-The Necktie quilt pattern is one of the oldest in existence.  "Both the inspiration and the material for "Necktie" were furnished by father's tie" wrote Nancy Cabot in her Chicago Tribune column.

She suggested you could cut "your pieces from materials of soft pastel tints so much in vogue now" if your "father watches his ties too closely and you cannot collect enough for a quilt."

I chose to use this feedsack print that I have in my fabric stash.  The little design looks like bow ties to me!









Today we would be more likely to know this block

as a Bow Tie block.

 We would also more commonly see it made without the contrasting center square like the quilt shown at the right from the Moda Bakeshop and a Girl in Paradise.  

There's a great tutorial there that shows how the block would have been sewn in Nancy's day.

There are several different ways to make a Necktie or Bow tie quilt.  In 1933, it was most likely pieced by hand using the set in method shown in the tutorial mentioned above.  I used this method for my 6" block from templates that you can get here.


These quilts were made by using the more modern method of stitch and flip.  You can find the tutorial here.

And yet a different method was used in making these Bow Tie blocks. You can learn this method from this tutorial or this video.  The video makes it a little easier to understand I think.




And here's a new twist on this old block from Red Pepper Quilts-



There's a very interesting two color Bowtie quilt at The Quilt Index from the late 1800's and a very scrappy version also.

The Necktie block can be found in Electric Quilt's Blockbase program as Necktie!

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