Make Your Own Holiday Special Ugly Sweaters

If you, like us at The Holo-Brick Archives, are feeling let down that no-one has thought to merchandise the ugly sweaters seen in this year’s LEGO Star Wars Advent Calendar (75279) set and the Holiday Special that streamed on Disney+ last week, then you’ll definitely want to read on because we’ve got great news to share.

It was the United Kingdom – that trendsetting nation that brought the world socks in sandals, cagoules, and train-spotting chic – which gave us the ugly Christmas sweater when it was popularised by such top celebrities as Timmy Mallet, Gyles Brandreth, Noel Edmonds, Christopher Biggins, and Richard Branson.

Their growing influence in the 1980s saw to it that the coarse, hand-knitted sweaters that grandmothers would force upon their families at Christmas became popular enough that a fashion trend would grow from it.

It wasn’t until recent years that these gag gifts became popular enough to require mass-production (putting grandmothers around the world out of business) and nowadays they have passed through ironic, and are now so fully retro that LEGO has recognized the phenomena of the ugly Christmas sweater by including them in this year’s LEGO Star Wars Advent Calendar (75279) set – which is available at LEGO.com, Walmart, Target, Amazon.com, Entertainment Earth and Toynk now – and the Holiday Special that streamed on Disney+ last week.

Thankfully the good folk at All For The Boys have made it as easy as print, iron and wear (OK, it’s not quite as straight-forward as that) with a set of easy-to-follow instructions and the appropriate files.

The guide’s author, Allison Walken, explains that downloading the template files that she has created is the first step towards an amazingly authentic garment, that when completed will make Christmas extra special this year.

You’ll need to load the file into a vinyl cutting machine and then feed it the red, white and black iron-on vinyl sheets that are needed for each of the layers. The hardest part is trimming the excess transparent adhesive material from around the, before placing it in the right locations. Allison recommends that starting with white, and then move on to red, before finishing off with the black vinyl will produce the best effect. And then you’ll need a heatpress to bond the vinyl to the sweathshirt.

If that all sounds too difficult or you’re used to instructions that are in isometric projections and provided in easy-to-follow, numbered steps then you’ll want to find your local custom t-shirt printer and outsource the job instead.

UPDATE: Failing that you can turn to TeeFury, who are printing BB-8 design on a number of products - like shirts, mugs, face masks and (probably) mousepads - shares avid reader and top commenter Russ.

Good luck – send us photos of your results!