Christmas is coming, it’s time for hot chocolate evenings in front of a Christmas movie! And to keep warm, what better than an ugly Christmas sweater?
December 16th is the international ugly christmas sweater day. Appeared in 1980, this day has for only and unique purpose to have fun! It is one of the days of the year when you can dare to wear an ultra-kitsch wool sweater, red, decorated with pompoms and Christmas motifs or even garlands. Don’t limit yourself!
For the occasion, we came up with a tutorial to create your own 100% upcycled and sustainable sweater:
Here’s what you need to get started:
- A pair of scissors.
- Fabric glue or if you have one, a sewing machine or a needle and thread will also do the trick!
- A sweater that you no longer wear.
- Colored fabric: you can take old t-shirts, dish towels or any other object from which you can recover fabric.
- Small accessories to style your sweater such as buttons, brooches, or other…
Let’s get started:
- Choose your pattern. We’ve opted for a reindeer. Find an image of a reindeer head design on internet and print it out.
- Cut the outline of your reindeer’s head to use it as a pattern.
- Draw your ugly Christmas sweater’s design with your reindeer’s pattern, the colors you want to use and all the decorations you will put on your design. This will give you a good idea of all the steps needed to make your ugly Christmas sweater.
- Cut out your colored fabrics by using your reindeer pattern.
- Once the shape is cut out, attach it to your sweater (glue or sew), then add details such as the nose and eyes by cutting small circles in your colored fabrics.
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Your base is ready, you just need to personalize your sweater by adding all kinds of accessories (garlands, baubles, pins, …)
The only limit is your own creativity! Have fun!
If you’re not very handy, we’ve put together a list of ugly Christmas sweaters for you to shop or you can enroll in our Upcycling Fashion Short Course and learn with professionals.