DIY Christmas Jumper

Well, if you're struggling to get into the Christmas spirit, I can highly recommend wearing fairy lights to work for the day. It's the biggest mood booster you'll find.

Christmas jumper day is a big thing at the school I work in, for both staff and children. I've never owned a Christmas jumper, but have a couple of nice wool sweaters (one with a pheasant, one with a star) that I usually wear when something seasonal is required. 

But this year I had a change of heart. I saw a lovely tutorial in Mollie Makes a while back for a DIY Christmas jumper, where a sweatshirt was decorated with sequins in the shape of oranges. I wanted to make something similar and couldn't face sewing on hundreds of sequins by hand, but it did give me an idea of how I could use an old grey sweatshirt that I hardly wear to make something fun and unique.

I found a brilliant free online tutorial for crochet fairy lights and set to work making lots. Thirty, in fact, in ten different colours using scrap cotton yarn from my stash. When I had enough, I laid them out across the front and back of the sweatshirt and drew lines across with fading pen where I wanted the "wire" to go.

I sewed this on using embroidery thread in chain stitch, to create the impression of an old fashioned cable.

I was pretty happy with the jumper like that, but I had bought a little battery operated pack of white fairy lights the week before, and had an idea that I could somehow incorporate this into the crocheted lights.

It just about works. I've managed to tuck the fairy lights into the embroidery thread, and the cable goes down the inside of the jumper into my jeans pocket.

I absolutely love it. I feel like, if you're going to make yourself a Christmas jumper covered in crochet fairy lights, then you might as well go all out and make it as ridiculous as possible.

I'm no further on with my gift wrapping, but I am starting to feel Christmassy.