Ugly Christmas Sweater

The last real post I made happened in October. Then I realized there weren't that many months until Christmas, so my free hours were spent working on gifts, most of which I finished. There might be an unfinished pair of pajamas in the sewing room. While I like to imagine myself the dutiful mother/wife, toiling through hours and hours of homemade gifts because I want them personal and money is tight, truthfully, I may have spent some time on myself.

Every year at work (for the past two years) there has been an ugly sweater competition. As I work only part time, the first year I was unable to participate. This year it was held on a day I work and due to my compulsive/addictive tendencies, when I'm in, I'm all in.

 

 I started with a yellow cardigan. It was a hand-me-down from my sister-in-law and perhaps I wasn't as cautious with it as I should have been or maybe it came that way, but either way, there were stains in several places. It made the perfect Christmas sweater because I could modify it without feeling like I had destroyed something in its prime. After much contemplation, I settled on lettering "MOORY CHRISTMAS" on the front and then using wonder-under to iron on and stitch on presents over all of the stains. It was a good way to use up scraps of ribbon and Christmas fabric. In hindsight, I should have made the letters bigger. Maybe next year.

The back, of course, was blank; a blank canvas so to speak. Naturally I made it into a bearded santa-cow to go with the saying on the front.

Fearing it wasn't enough, I stitched tinsel to the cuffs and whatever the part at the bottom of the sweater is called. It's not really a hem, but sort of.

Accessories are a must and a broken strand of lights laced with dollar store ornaments became the necklace and earrings.

Still, I worried it might not be enough. There are some pretty hideous sweaters out there. Time to up the game. I spent several hours watching tutorials and creating smokey eyes and then translating the suggestions into a Christmas palate. (The stripes are wrapping paper covered in tape and then glued on with eyelash adhesive and the red sparkles are glitter glue. Probably not approved for use on skin, but I'm not dead)

The result was Hunger Games meets Christmas and I was quite satisfied, especially when it was all paired with leather boots, pleather pants, and battery operated lights woven through my hair. As you can see, the look was quite becoming, or if not, it was at least enough to take 1st PLACE!!!

Okay, so it wasn't so stellar by the end of the day and my eyes look my age. Closeups aren't ideal, but it is a detail worth zooming in on.

 

I also included some vampire reindeer on the door just to amuse myself. Most of my students didn't care for it or understand it, but as I said, it was for me.