Are You Preparing for Christmas Yet?

I know, I know - it's mid-February and Christmas is still over 10 months away. But I'm dedicated to being ready by the end of October so...

Now remember, when I say Christmas, what I really mean is all the birthdays throughout the year and Mother's Day and Father's Day, as well. To that end, I've been ordering stuff since mid-December - mostly small stuff that will make nice but inexpensive gifts. Like last time I posted about this, I still haven't seen what I've ordered but I plan to make a trip to town this week so can take an inventory (and maybe even get it all home!).

Potholder sets = future gifts!

What I do know is that this will be the year of the kitchen spruce-up for many on my list. I've noticed how awful the dishtowels and potholders are most everywhere I visit so I'm going to do something about it. I started by ordering a bunch of nice on-sale dishtowels from Kohl's. Then I got into practicing free motion quilting, which quickly morphed into potholders. Of course, I can't stand to waste anything so I even made potholders from the potholder scraps.

This whole potholder project has really helped me with Project DO, as well. I finally found a use for all the batting scraps I've been saving. Most are in narrow strips but I basted those together (more free motion practice - yay!) and I even used up several binding and thread remnants left from previous quilt projects. Cleaning/decluttering AND making gifts - can't get much better than that!

So... Are YOU preparing for Christmas yet?