If, like me, you missed Christmas Jumper Day last week, don’t worry. You can make a felt Christmas jumper to go on your tree, and have Christmas Jumper Day all through the festive season!
This is a great make for expressing your creativity. You can make it in a number of ways and decorate it to your heart’s content. Children can get involved, too, and make their own – or maybe have a family jumper that everyone adds a bit to.
You will need:
jumper template (Make sure the resolution is 200dpi before you print it to get it at the right size)
bright felt, approx. 5″ x 8″
embroidery silks to match and contrast with the felt
decorations, eg sequins, ribbon, braid, buttons. embroidery, anything else you can think of
mini coat hanger or length of ribbon or cord for hanging
You can get the jumper template here: 
To make:
- Cut 2 jumpers from felt.
- Using 1 or 2 strands of embroidery silk to match the jumper felt, sew lines of backstitch or stem stitch on the bottom of one jumper piece, round the neck and at the bottom of the sleeves, to represent ribbing. Don’t go right to the edges as you will be sewing along the edge later.
- Now add decoration. You can make this as simple, as complicated, as whacky as you like. I’ll show you what I’ve done, to give you some ideas, and how I stitched different decorations on. (You can always abandon your needle altogether and glue the decorations on place!)
I added ricrac braid along the bottom and sleeves, just above the ribbing. I used invisible thread to stitch over the braid. You can use a matching or contrasting embroidery silk, or machine it in place.
I stitched a piece of braid across the top of the jumper. Braid and ribbon is probably best machined in place, sewing along the top and bottom of the braid.
Next I stitched a line of embroidery. You could use embroidery on its own, with several rows of different stitches. I kept it simple, with a row of whipped stem stitch. I used thread to match the jumper for the stem stitch, and a contrasting thread for the whipping.
Underneath, I stitched a large snowflake sequin. Sequins, whether single ones like this, or rows, are probably best stitched in place using invisible or matching thread.
4. Now decorate the second jumper piece for the back. This jumper isn’t symmetrical, so make sure you decorate the right side! (Or you might end up having to make two!)
Do the ribbing as in no. 2. Then decorate in a similar way (to match or completely different) or you may decide to leave it plain.
5. Add a hanging loop of ribbon or cord to the back of the jumper by stitching it in place, or buy or make a mini coat hanger. (You can find instructions for making a hanger in the next post)
6. Place the two jumper pieces wrong sides together and stitch them together, either by machine close to the edge, or with blanket stitch, using one or two strands of matching embroidery thread.
And here’s your jumper, ready to hang on your tree.
I’ll be showing you how I make my jumpers in Instagram Stories on Saturday, December18th.
