How To Make Your Own Ugly Saxophone Christmas Sweater

The trend is not going out of style, and every year more ugly Christmas sweaters get shipped out and make their way into gift boxes; family holiday and party photos; as well as into the theme of holiday parties. Yes, the ugly Christmas sweater has become a cultural phenomena that has taken hold. But what about us sax players? Is there such a thing as an ugly saxophone Christmas sweater?

If you go to eBay or Amazon, you’ll find the occasional long-sleeved T or sweat shirt that tries to pass itself of as a sweater, or perhaps a lame vest with a saxophone that too tries to pass itself off as a sweater. No, if you’re a saxophone player looking for an ugly Christmas sweater to celebrate your instrument of choice, you’re seriously out of luck.

While Googling this cultural phenomena, I did find one ugly saxophone Christmas sweater on Pinterest. The sweater had originally been sold on Etsy, but sadly there seem to no more available. This was clearly a one-off.

Source: pinterest.com

This sweater above, inspired me to put together the following How To for all you disappointed saxophone players out there, who really want an ugly Christmas sweater of your very own, but can’t find one.

How to make your very own ugly saxophone Christmas sweater in 12 easy steps

1. Fire up eBay and enter saxophone Santa; or saxophone reindeer; or saxophone snowman; saxophone polar bear; or saxophone together with any other kind of Christmas-themed word you can think of.
2. Pick out your favourite item that will serve as a centre-piece for your sweater and order it. (Hopefully it will arrive on time.)
3. Go to your sweater drawer and pick out the ugliest sweater you own. You know, the one that a relative gave you that you never wear. Or perhaps one that you’ve had for 20 years that is hopelessly out of style.
4. Don’t have an ugly sweater already? Go to a thrift shop near you, and buy one. The uglier the better. Then go home and WASH IT.
5. Go to your local craft shop and buy some trim. The creator of the sweater above used garland for trim, but let your imagine go WILD and CRAZY! Use anything you want. The crazier and wilder the better. Foil anything is fabulous, and catches the festive party lights of season brilliantly.
6. At the same craft store, or at a fabric store, buy a piece of red or green felt or other heavy fabric. (Christmas fabric with a holiday pattern works well, but again the fabric has to be heavy.) The piece has to be big enough to cover most of the front of sweater.
7. Also buy some black felt. The piece has to be large enough that you can create a few musical notes with it.
8. Cut the red/green/holiday fabric the right size and sew/glue (it has to be attached firmly) to the sweater.
9. Attach the trim to the neckline, waist, and maybe wrists of the sweater.
10. Once the saxophone-playing, plush toy arrives, and you know its size, outline some musical notes with chalk on the black felt, and cut them out.
11. When it comes to attaching the saxophone-playing plush toy, this really should be attached with some stitching. Attach by using a strong thread, at multiple points, over the full length/wide of the plush toy. Stitching it like this allows you to remove it later, and reuse somewhere else when you get tired of your sweater, or when it becomes soiled.
12. Finally, sew or glue the notes near the bell of the saxophone.

The above guide is a suggestion only. Use these steps to go CRAZY with your very own ugly saxophone Christmas sweater ideas.

I just have one request: If you do make your own ugly saxophone Christmas sweater, please upload a photo of it here in the comments section. I would love to see what people have created. Thanks!