Prism99

You need to wash the ties.

I believe one member here places the ties in a bag and washes them in the machine before taking them apart. When I started (and abandoned) my silk tie project, I took them apart first. It's pretty fast to take them apart. Basically you find the single thread in the back of the tie that is holding the edges together; pull on that, cut the thread, then remove the interfacing inside the tie. I tried washing the ties in my sink, but found that some of the red ties bled profusely.

Once the ties are taken apart and washed (in whatever order), you need to iron and add interfacing to the silk to give it some stability and durability. You want an iron-on fusible that is very lightweight. I can go look up what was recommend to me; I bought mine on eBay.

I never got far enough to continue with sewing advice, so I will be watching this thread for additional info.

Edit: Instead of the interfacing method above, which stabilizes the silk so you can piece it together, it might be easier to do foundation piecing. For crazy quilting, you could use a muslin piece as the foundation and simply sew and iron silk strips onto the muslin.