Gift for your eco-guitar pickin’ dad
I admit to being a total and complete sentimental fool. From the time Corey was six years old, I would embarrass her every June when Pomp and Circumstance came on the car radio and I would have to pull over because I’d start bawling so hard at the thought of her graduating from college!
I’m especially emotional when it comes to family and for me, reusing and re-purposing are most often done in the context of these connections and feelings.
After my dad died a few years ago, I took home a half dozen of his ties. Nowadays, men outside of big cities and politics, rarely wear them unless pressured into it.
But as a preteen, while I modeled poodle skirts, penny loafers and a pony tail, my dad never went to work without a silk tie perfectly knotted under his lightly starched, bright, white collar. On weekends, even dinners at indifferent family restaurants required them.
A generation earlier, men practically slept in their ties. One of my favorite family photos shows my husband’s great grandfather attired for a picnic at their summer lake home in Michigan circa 1910 (See photo at left).
That’s why while tie sales may have hit bottom (sales revenue from ties fell 16 percent in 2009, to $418 million, from a peak of more than $1 billion in the mid-1990s), billions of them no doubt clog men’s closets as well as thrift shops.
Why not turn some into a gift for Father’s Day? That was my thought when, early this morning, I took out the ties I’d brought home from LA after my father passed away.
My favorite tie of the bunch is one decorated in musical notations, because it represents such an important part of who he was.
Dad played the violin as a child (according to his younger sister, he was something of a prodigy). But his family and legions of friends knew him as a talented pianist who, at the slightest urging, would enthusiastically and effortlessly entertain with any song ever written-by ear in the key of C.
Unfortunately, none of our kids survived piano lessons, but two of the three play the guitar as does my husband.
So it’s not surprising that when staring at Dad’s tie strewn with notes, a vision erupted like a joyous chord-I would turn it into a guitar strap!
Well, one thing led to another and what I ended up making was actually, to be more precise, a guitar strap cozy. (Not that you want to call it that to your dad’s face should you decide to make one for Father’s Day.)
The idea is to create a fabric sleeve that slips over the strap and can be changed as the guitarist’s mood shifts. If you’ve got a bunch of ties, you could make an entire wardrobe of guitar cozies! Mine is sewn closed but if you happen to have a rocker dad who would like to r-i-i-i-p off the strap cozy and toss it into the sweating, screaming, adoring crowd, a little Velcro will do the trick.
I won’t bore you with the directions nor share all the howling and swearing I did during the process. (I never measure and to be honest, wiggling the cozy onto the strap took off a few pounds in sweat.) Suffice it to say that my guitar cozy is a tube created with minimal sewing (one seam if your tie is wide enough), that slides (not effortlessly) over the strap.
Note: After I posted this, I had several requests for instructions, so I did my best. Here you go.
What do you think of my guitar cozy idea? (Be nice please.)
For more green Father’s Day ideas, check out our Celebrate Green! website. And watch for more eco-Dad’s Day gift ideas right here.
