I have a bunch of friends who have started celebrating the ugly Christmas sweater with an annual party, where they compete to see who can show up with the cheesiest, most over the top, ridiculous Christmas sweater. I don’t live close enough to them to attend one of these parties, but I fully endorse the spirit behind it. Christmas is the one time of year that all my snobby design ideals go out the window and I embrace the camp. It’s time to get silly and festive, so I had to memorialize it in an ornament.
I made myself a pattern out of chipboard and cut out two layers of knit fabric. This shape is easy enough that I bet you could sketch it out yourself, but I’ve included it down below if you want to just use mine. I used a remnant piece of T-shirt jersey, but any knit will do – including a polar fleece. Pin the two pieces right sides together.
Insert a loop of ribbon or thread for the hanger between the two pieces of fabric, with the raw ends poking out the neck. Sew all the way around the two pieces, leaving an inch long open space for turning. I like to reinforce the beginning and end of the seam, as well as where the hanger comes out. Those points all get a lot of stress and a few extra stitches will keep it from popping open.
Snip the fabric in the armpits right up until the seam line. That corner is such a tight squeeze that without this step your sweater won’t lay flat. It will just be all bunched up at this corner. Giving it a snip gives it a little room to move around.
Turn the sweater right side out, paying special attention to getting the sleeves and shoulders all the way out. Then decorate however your heart desires. I used some white glue and stuck on sequins, since I think a sequined sweater is the very height of campy ugly Christmas sweaters.
Stuff your sweater, then stitch or glue your opening closed.
We’ve been sitting around at night decorating these as a family, but I think this could be an excellent Christmas party activity. How fun would it be to have all your friends decorate a little sweater to compete for the ugliest, and then take it home as a party favor.
I was searching for sweater ornaments and landed on your blog. This is very cute:>..
Thank you.
I was looking for ugly Christmas sweater ornaments for our ugly Christmas sweater party and think I am going to use your example and "ugly" it up a bit. Thanks for sharing the idea!!
Nice post, thx for sharing