Tuesday, March 2, 2010

too many to count, but close to 90

I have to wear a tie to work most days. I wear a tie to church every Sunday. I served a mission to Italy, and I anticipated both of those things, and therefore I bought a lot of ties while in Italy. I only took 6 or 7 ties with me when I went into the MTC, and in my first area, there was a closet that had a built-in tie rack, for 30 or so ties. I thought it was a pretty nice way to hang up ties.

It looked a bit like this, only instead of pegs, it had little hangers that rotated in against the inside of the closet door. (Picture it on the inside of an armoire door.) Well, I bought several ties in my first area, and in later areas, but I never had a tie hanger as nice as that first one. When I got home, I found tie hangers like this one, and bought a few for my tie collection. Each hanger holds 24 ties, and I needed three of them to hold all of my ties. That means I had somewhere between 48 and 72 ties when I got home from Italy.
After buying so many ties over the course of 2 years, I was hooked, even though my initial plan was to never buy any more ties in my life. It got worse a year or so ago when I found out that there was an Andrew's Ties store here in Las Vegas (it's in the shoppes at the Venetian/Palazzo upscale mall). Andrew's Ties was my favorite tie store in Italy, so last Christmas I finally checked it out, and bought three ties. They cost a lot more here than in Italy, in case you wondered.

Well, eventually, I needed more tie hangers. Right now I have four tie hangers and they are almost full (four of those hangers will hold 96 ties, but I do have a few open spots). I have two more hangers in case I need them.

Kelsea always thought my tie collection was a little weird, and always tried to convince me to get rid of the oldest, or loudest, or any that were worn out. I let her use some to make patchwork pillows once (though she actually wanted to make a quilt, I didn't let her destroy that many ties). So now she suggested I wear each tie once, until I wear them all. I started yesterday, and it is going to take a while. At 5 ties a week, I think it will take me until July or so to get through them all. I do have a few ties that are kind of loud, so I know I will get comments on them (and I am hesitant to wear a few, like my toilet tie), but there are probably only 3 or 4 like that. Before anyone asks, I have worn every single tie in my collection at least once already (yes, in public), a few just get into the rotation much more frequently right now. I'll let you know how this little project progresses.

4 comments:

KVB said...

I envy your tie collection. I am sitting at only around 30, but that includes a custom-made (by myself) black leather tie and a purple crush-velvet tie. I use a circular hanger, which works pretty well.

Dee said...

I considered taking a picture of the whole collection, but I wanted to be sure I recorded what I was doing in some fashion first. Maybe I'll do pictures when I'm halfway through or so.

Molly said...

I have looked and looked for that peg tie hanger for Elliott. My dad had one and it made the ties so organized. Now we have these tie hangers, but they are not designed well. As a result his ties always fall to the floor. Elliott has some nice Andrew's Ties too...thanks to your tip. :)

Dee said...

I got my tie hangers (and that picture of the tie hanger) on Amazon.com.