If you’re invited to a fun festive party don’t you want to look your best? I admit I’m a vain person, if I showed up at a Christmas party wearing an ugly sweater it would put a damper on my night. I would much rather look cute/hot or at least stylish?
If you like the ugly Christmas sweater trend, I mean no offense I do understand the fun in going creatively wild, and the freedom to make something completely tacky without any limits. I think I might enjoy making a totally over-the-top Christmas sweater, with the Christmas lights, bows and 3-d elements, and then gifting it to someone else to wear LOL.
Last week, I went to my favorite local thrift shop, The Community Resource center in Encinitas, I was surprised to find an entire rack of ugly Christmas sweaters, priced higher then you would expect, according to the shop manager, ugly Christmas sweaters are huge! She told me they had sold most of their inventory the previous weekend and that she collects them all year long because they are such great sellers!… Go figure.
I knew I wanted to reconstruct an ugly Christmas sweater and somehow make it cute, I figured if I could pull this off, it would be quite the crafty challenge. My good friend Bobby said it’s not possible to make an ugly Christmas sweater look good, but I was determined, and when I saw the white cashmere Christmas sweater hanging on the rack I knew it would be perfect!
This is what it looked like before I cut it up… The photo makes it look much better than it really is, you can see me wearing it in the opening segment of my video… it’s not very flattering on me.
This project was fairly quick and easy to make, here are some tips that I did not explain on camera,
if you want a big full fluffy pom-poms, pack as much yarn on your pom-pom maker as you can,. The pom pom machine is really handy and fun but you can make a homemade version from cardboard too, check out the Crochet Geek’s tutorial here.
Look for a sweater that is extra large or very long, you don’t need to use a Christmas sweater, you can use any sweater that you don’t mind cutting up.
It’s ideal to have six, 4 inch strips as long as you can squeeze out of your sweater, stitch the six strips together end to end, so you end up with three very long strips, sew up the sides, right sides facing in and turn out, then braid your long tubes together, as shown in the video.
I ended up reinforcing my snowman with a needle in thread to ensure that he stayed together snuggly I also wanted his earmuffs to be low on his face. At first my snowman looked like a cat and the earmuffs looked like ears, I fixed this by tacking his ear muffs down closer to his neck and this solved the problem
Sincerely,
Debi
you are such a hoot! I love your videos and your great sense of humor.
is there two snowmen? one on each end???
I think some wearing the ugly Christmas sweaters is kind of a fun thing to do but it is a fad and might be gone by next year.
Your sweater is fun too!
I’m with you girl, my husband says a kindred spirit. This year the girls want to do an ugly sweater Chrtstmas party. Not for this girl, I want to look cute and fashionable, after loosing a lot of weight who wants to look frumpy on their special night out. Cute it is.
I love it!!! I have not worn an ugly Christmas sweater, EVER! But I would definitely wear this one. How cute! I love that your mom wore it to work. Sharing on my FB page later today. This is my idea of the perfect upcycle. Great work friend!
I love to watch your videos, the first one I saw was about the ce ce paint I don’t know maybe a year or so ago. I was feeling down and I felt like watching it again but I couldn’t remember who you were or the name of the paint! I searched and searched and finally looked up chalk paint and after awhile there you were! I watched and watched over and over, I was giggling and my adult son said what are you laughing at? So I made him watch, he thought I was crazy, anyway I looked you up and what made my Christmas season was that there was a whole world of videos with you, you make me laugh and sometimes that’s all a person needs to feel happy, thank you!
Very cute and o so creative. I worked at a thrift store and everyone came in looking for the ” ugly” sweater. I’m over it. Let’s think up something new to do for parties… Cutest Christmas hat? Ooooo wear elf shoes ;)?
Beautiful photography DebiDot! Hugs.
Adorable girly.. I am going to make some for gifts.. I had better get going….
Hi!! I just discovered you on u tube watching a great mirror you made…awesome!!
I ‘m gonna check out the rest!!
Besos from spain
Sofie
lol, you are great!! totally love your video on the ugly sweater!