This upcycled Christmas sweater is a perfect project for the holiday season to make something fun & festive for your wardrobe. All you need is an old sweater or jumper (depending on what you call it where you live), either from your own wardrobe or from the thrift store, some scrap yarn in different colours, as well as some basic crochet skills & tools and you will be able to pull this holiday sweater off.
This Christmas ornament & bauble sweater is also perfect to make as a gift for someone, craft together with a group of friends as a thrift challenge, or to wear to a Christmas Sweater party. Let’s avoid the cheap fast fashion sweaters this season and make our own instead! 😊
As you can see from the TikTok above (which I created 2 years after this project was complete in 2020) I didn’t only upcycle one sweater into a Christmas sweater but rather I upcycled three thrifted sweaters in total.
Check out my other upcycled Christmas sweater tutorials:
In the video tutorial above I am showing you how to crochet your own Christmas baubles & star-ornaments and decorate your sweater with those. You can watch the video here, however, if you prefer, you can keep on reading…
The perfect handknitted Christmas jumper
But before we get into the tutorial. I just want to show you another one of my holiday sweaters which is this handknitted Christmas jumper above.
I actually started on this jumper last year and it’s called “The Perfect Christmas Jumper” the knit pattern is written by Susan Crawford and you can check her out on Ravelry here.
I wanted to knit this jumper for many years before I got around to do so. When I look back at my Ravelry account I can see that I added this one as a favourite in December 2014 and last year was when I decided that I’m gonna finally make it.
In November 2017 I ordered the yarns and bought the pattern. Around Christmas 2017 I finally decided to start knitting it. I did some progress on the rib but then I took a break for many months and I didn’t take it up until August again. At that time I made a commitment to myself to knit at least one row every day. More than often I did knit way more rows than one row because otherwise this will not be finished yet… 😉
This project took many hours of my time, but I’m super, super proud of myself to be that patient and let a project really evolve with time. So if you want to make a slow Christmas jumper project for like next Christmas I highly recommend The Perfect Christmas Jumper by Susan Crawford.
Let’s upcycle our sweater into a fun & festive one!
Before doing anything to the sweaters which I planned to upcycle I made sure to hand wash them all with my cashmere and wool shampoo.
I washed them separately as I wasn’t sure if the colours would bleed and it ever didn’t want this white cashmere sweater to be stained.
For this project I used:
- A white cashmere jumper from the thrift store
- A bunch of scrap yarn in various colours
- Crochet hooks suitable for the yarn
- Yarn or darning needle
How to make your Christmas baubles:
Start by making a magic ring
Insert your hook in chain three. Crochet one double crochet into ring. Then make nine more double crochets into the ring. 10 double crochets in total.
Then slip stitch to join round. In the second round chain three, then make two double crochets into each stitch all the way around. 20 stitches in total.
Once again slip stitch to join round.
Now it’s time for round 3: Start by chaining one stitch and then do one single crochet into the next stitch, then make two single crochets into the next stitch, followed by one single crochet into the following and repeat these three stitches all the way around. 30 stitches in total.
Once complete slip stitch to join round.
Now it’s time to make the ornament topper! I used a grey yarn for mine but you can use any colour you like for your topper.
Start by joining yarn with a slip stitch then chain one, and turn, make three
single crochet into each of the following three stitches then chain one stitch, turn and make three single crochet.
Now it’s time to fasten and hide the threads. Make sure to pull the circle closed and then using a darning needle pulling the threads inside the bauble to hide them.
When fastening the threads near the ornament topper tie the yarn of the bauble together with a joint topper yarn. Pull and hide. Make sure to use one of the grey threads to pull towards the middle of the topper making sure not to cut it off as we will use it to attach it to the jumper later.
Once my first bauble was complete I made two more bright pink baubles, three mustard yellow ones, three two blue ones and three baby blue, as well as three baby pink ones. In total, I made 15 baubles.
Now it’s time to make the stars! 🌟
Start by making a magic ring, then chain three and make nine half double crochets into the ring.
Then slip stitch to join round, and on the second round chain three, then slip stitch into the second chain from hook, and then make a half double crochet into the third chain from hook.
Skip next stitch in the circle and slip stitch into the following stitch. This is the star peak, repeat until you have 5 star peaks in total.
Once complete slip stitch to join and fasten thread making sure to pull circle to close and with a darning needle pull the other yarn tail through one of the star peaks. Then leave the tail of yarn as we will use this to attach it to the jumper later.
I then continued to make 10 more stars, 11 in total for my jumper.
It’s time to plan the design!
Now it’s time for the really fun part – planning the final design!
For the string, I used a black silk yarn from my stash. Before marking where I will crochet the string I planned out the design by testing to lay the yarn in different ways on top of my jumper. Then I tested out how it will look together with my ornaments.
Once I was happy with the placement I used a fabric marker to plan out where the string will go.
I decided to crochet the string onto the jumper using slip stitches. I did this by having my yarn on the wrong side of the jumper pulling it through to the right side so that I had two loops on the right side and the yarn on the wrong side.
Then I pulled the two loops together with my hook as I’m creating the slip stitches. Then to continue I needed to pull my hook through the jumper to pick up a loop to pull through.
Take care to not pull too much whilst doing this as you want to create a tension similar to your jumper. Not that I’m speaking from experience or anything here… 😜
Here is a tip for you if you like me want to have a string on the sleeves as well: Put your ball of yarn into the sleeve and then your hand through to direct the yarn towards your hook. If you hold your yarn under where you will pull the yarn through next the process will be way smoother.
My string became a bit uneven with my tension which created a bit of gathering. After I was done I tried to smooth it out as much as it can – but what I couldn’t smooth out I decided that I just will call a design feature.
Now it’s time to do the final plan on where my ornaments will go. Once I was happy with where the ornaments where placed I attached them to my jumper by using a safety pin.
Then it’s time to start attaching the ornaments using the string I left on them earlier. I did this by making a couple of stitches until the ornaments seemed securely attached.
Then I did tie the yarn on the back and pulled in the ends on the back of the string to hide any loose yarn tails.
And now my jumper is done! 🥳 I’m so happy with how it turned out! 😍
I really hope you liked this tutorial! If you did please share it with a friend who you think might appreciate an upcycling Christmas sweater tutorial. 💖🙏🏼
If you’re watching/reading this and it’s not the Christmas season yet I think you can also add the same idea, but instead of doing the Christmas ornaments you can add flowers and things like that for spring/summer or you can add leaves and little acorns and stuff like that for the autumn season or if it’s Halloween you can add spooky little ghosts and pumpkins stuff like that.
I hope you will use this tutorial as an inspiration and then just add your own twist to it! 😉
Want to save it for later? Pin it!
If you want to see any other upcycling and DIY tutorials I would love
to hear from you what you want me to create in 2019. Leave a comment down below and let me know!
