Sew Sew Sew Merry Christmas!

Once upon a time there was a girl who was generally a Christmas non-decorator and unskilled at many things crafty, particularly things involving sewing machines.  You may recall from a previous post that sewing machines scare me.  Maybe this is on account of fairy tales about pricking fingers and dying/sleeping.  Nevertheless, there was a cute idea to try.  My sister-in-law had made some Christmas stockings from sweaters, and invited me to do the same.  I opted in, because they really were cute!

I guess if I had had sweaters at home that needed repurposing, this would have worked. I did not.  Instead, I went to the local used clothes shop and scoped out their selection.  I set eyes on a sweater that I absolutely adored... for this project.  I turned it down, however, due to the coloring.  It didn't seem like the proper Christmas colors.  I kept looking.  All over.  Do you know how many ugly sweaters there are in this world, just crying to be made into something less ugly?  More than you care to see, that's how many.  And in the end, I walked out with two sweaters.  The one pictured is from the sweater I liked the best, because I liked the bling.  Doesn't it kind of look snowflake-like?

So here's the thing, it's really a rather simple project.  (I had sister-in-law supervision while working on mine, granted, but it was still pretty straight forward.)  I turned the sweater inside out.  Then, using a store-bought stocking from another year as a template, traced a pattern in marker on the sweater.  After that, with the sweater still totally intact, the two layers of the sweater were pinned together.  Then, it was sown together.  After the sewing was done, than the cutting took place.  Leaving the sweater uncut until after all the sewing is done helps keep the material from sliding and otherwise wreaking havoc on your Christmas cheer.

I then cut a scrap from one of the ribbed sections of the sweater and used this as the hook to hang the sweater.  (I had a bit of help with this, because seriously, I kept making it all whickety-whack and needed help to get it to hang correctly.)  Didn't it come out so nicely?  Look at it!  Just adorable!!  And what's even better is that I actually MADE it.  Woohoo!