Ugly Christmas Sweater Ornaments.

I needed another project for my ornament party.  My go-to source for ideas is Pinterest and I kept seeing very cute miniature sweater ornaments.  Lots of them were hand-knit but I knew I would never have time to make 20 hand-knit little sweaters.  But, I had a bin of ivory wool from old sweaters.  Coming up with a pattern was super easy.  I just drew a little sweater on cardstock and cut it out.  I stitched 2 pieces of wool together using the pattern and then cut the shape out, leaving a space at the neck and leaving the bottom open.  Very fast.  I think each one only took about 2 minutes to sew.  Now the fun begins!  I took my wool felt and my embroidery supplies and created a couple of very cute options.

The holly leaves are my favorite, I think.  Tiny pieces of green wool felt plus some red beads.  So quick but really adorable.  The leaves could even be a little bigger.  The star is outlined with pearl beads using blanket stitch to line them up right along the edge.

I love the string of lights!  This is just multi-colored sequins sewn randomly along a strand of thicker black embroidery thread.  There's a bead holding each sequin on.  And the tree was easy as well.  Hand-drawn using a chalk pen.  There's a little brown wool trunk and then sequins for ornaments and a star sequin for the tree topper.

These would also be cute in red wool or green wool.  I can't wait to see what my party invitees come up with.  These four sweaters are going into the sale I have tomorrow night at my boys' school.  To appeal to the moms, I also made a couple of sweaters in maroon wool appliquéd with the logo of the school.  These will sell very quickly, I think.

Now, my favorite part of these ornaments is the little hanger.  It looks just like a real clothes hanger and is made of 17-guage wire.  I made a couple of them by hand using a needle-nosed pliers but I knew this would not work for the 20 I needed to make.  So, I made a jig.  This is just a hunk of scrap 2X4 that I found in the workshop.  I hammered in nails about 2 1/4 inch apart.  The rest was super easy.  10 inches of wire wrapped around the nails and then crossed slightly off center to allow for the wrap to bring the cross section to the center.

The nails are bent slightly to the center so I could get the shape off.  You could also use finish nails which don't have a head on them.  My dad would be proud that I know what a finish nail is.  After getting the shape off the nails, I used a pliers to wrap one wire around the other and cut off the excess.  Then, I took the other end and made a hook at the top, also cutting off the excess.  These went so quickly!  I think I made 20 little hangers in about 10 minutes.  Now I have a whole pile ready for my party.