Dressage Stock-tie for $3.73!

Who here has no financial concerns whatsoever? You are excused, please go back to your charmed life, while the rest of us try to squeeze the last drop out of every last penny. It is Vet season, as in shots/coggins season, membership renewal season and show season, so my pennies are on fire.

As I am going to my first rated show, cue the applause, I need to look the part, which requires a Dressage Stock tie. You can find those quite inexpensively online, even Amazon has a few decent ones, but that is still too rich for my blood. Plus I didn't want to be all white and boring, and I have an imagination and a sewing machine with passable skills. So I puzzled and puzzled 'till my puzzler was sore, and went to find cheap material. The best place to find scrap material may not be your local fabric store, but instead your local Goodwill, where found exactly what I had in mind; white with a little color and a little sparkle with some great details already done for me:

White with blue and silver stripes.

I know the silver is not really showing in the pic, it is quite subtle, so perfect for Dressage. And since the front had all that detailed pleating, I decided to use that in some way. 

Just to be clear; I don't have a pattern for a stock tie, I just went for it. First I decided to make the collar part, and I looked at the collars of shirts and thought, whoa that's not easy to trace..... Come on Google, and lo and behold the interwebs had just what I needed; a Shirt Collar Pattern. So I printed that off and I was off and running. This shirt was made with wide interfacing at the front, the part that is sewed back from the buttons. The picture doesn't show it, but right below where the pic ends so does the pleating. I used that doubled up, folded back part with the interfacing for the collar, cutting one side for the collar on each side if the shirt. After finishing that, I played around a bit, and came of with this:

Upside down front portion of shirt

After cutting off the bottom of that, and sewing all the sides neatly, I ended up with a nice rectangle for bottom of my Stock tie. I then went and found one of my husbands old wider ties, and used that as a guide for cutting the tie part. I made two sides and then sewed them together. Then I attached the tie part to the collar and the rectangle on top and:

Finished!

I think it turned out just fine. I added a few crystals for some bling on the buttons, and plan on adding a Stock pin of some sort to hold it together and keep it from flying up as I ride; a dressage NO!

And the final price was just right for this cash strapped Dressage rider:

Hope that gave you some ideas........