Planning For Christmas

Halloween is two days gone, and every crafter knows what that means: you should be halfway finished with all your Christmas presents you’re making right now! Unless you’re me. Then you always wait until November 1st to start planning who will get what, and then have a small panic when you realize you are a terribly slow stitcher and will never get finished in time.

Every year is the same: I tell myself I want to get a head start on my projects for Christmas, then I wait until November to get started. Come December 20th I’m always scrambling to finish. I owe a lot of people IOUs from previous Christmases. (They usually become birthday presents instead.)

This year is no different! Actually, it is a little different… I wasn’t originally going to stitch my Christmas presents this year as I have in years past. I haven’t picked up my needle in months (if the lack of articles on the blog over the last few months is any indication), and I was generally feeling down about my craftiness and whether I even wanted to make the effort this year when I knew I wouldn’t get it done.

Then I told myself, “You can do this! Everyone loves your gifts. So what if it’s November and everyone knows you won’t finish in time? At least you do finish them and give them out in the end!”

So here I am, spending today sorting through my stash and picking out projects. I even bought new charts! I’ve been on a stash diet for months now until my stitching bug came back. It feels like today was the day to splurge. I can almost guarantee I don’t have any of the colors I need for any of these new charts, because I never have the colors I need when I need them, but that means a shopping trip and more goodies for me!

The past two years I’ve only managed to complete 2 of my projects on time… this year, I’ll have 14. Some of them are back ups in case I run out of time and need something quicker to stitch, but I’ve been careful to keep all the projects under 7 inches. And you’ll notice the mini kits in here:

Some of them I’ve already started. Some I have to kit up still. But after all my planning today I feel like my stitching bug is finally back. I’m ready to pick up the needle again. I’m ready for Christmas!

What are your plans for the holidays? Got projects you need to finish?

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“Random Corner” is a place for the articles related to all manners of cross-stitchery and the cross-stitch community that don’t fall under the topics covered in the regular segments.

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