Make your own ugly Christmas sweater

FIrst, start with your theme. Do you want a Santa sweater? Love those Christmas pickles (what is up with those anyway?) Go bizzare if you must. The best sweater will have some organization in the chaos. By picking a theme, you will have a plan on how to proceed.

Next, you will want to pick out your sweater. I strongly suggest you go with a Salvation Army sweater, or go to your local thrift store. You will be shopping local and supporting a good cause. I would go with a sturdy cotton sweater. Synthetics are ok, but you will want to feel the sweater. I, personally, do not care for the synthetics. They tend to be scratchy. Be sure to wash your sweater before you begin. A mild detergent and a gentle cycle should be ok for laundering. Check the label if it has one. If there is no label, you may want to air dry the sweater by laying it flat. Otherwise, you may have some shrinking.

After selecting your sweater, you will want to hunt down embellishments to add. It just isn't an ugly sweater without all of the decorations right?

For beginners: You may want to stick with just adding ornaments to your sweater. If you feel up to it, your local craft store has simple cross stitching kits. Ask a friend to show you how. It is not very hard. You can add the pattern randomly all over your sweater to suit your tastes. There is material for cross stitching that allows you to stitch and then remove the backing. I would go for this. Free style snowflakes would also be an option.

Not feeling so ambitious, you can purchase ready made appliques. They come in iron on form or you can stitch them on yourself. Either way, they add that touch of gaudy. The more the merrier!