Holiday Preparations

Keeping my home filled with comfortable quilts and quilted items for all the holidays and seasons keeps me busy and my storage area overflowing. I am a sucker for clearance sales, so after a holiday is over, I like to get to the best stores the next day and get those huge discounts.

Last year I talked Sue Harvey, my editorial partner at Quilter's World, into stopping at T.J.Maxx on our way home from the airport from our trip to the International Quilt Market in Houston. It was the day after Halloween, and I knew they had some wonderful decorator items prior to the holiday that would be on sale that day. I bought lots of things, brought them home and packed them away. It was so much fun unpacking them this year because I had no idea what I had bought. My Halloween section of the attic is growing, but probably won't ever catch up with my Christmas section.

Years ago when I began to seriously decorate for holidays I purchased two orange-and-black plastic storage containers. I thought that these would help me quickly find my Halloween decorations among all the others. It took me several years to fill them, but now I could use 10 of them, I think. It would be so helpful if I color-coded all my containers this way, with green or red for Christmas, yellow or pink for Easter, and blue for patriotic. Then I could have brown for autumn … I could go on and on.

I have made many quilted runners and wall quilts for Halloween, but I have made lots more for Christmas. I have lap quilts, quilts to hang over chairs, quilts for every bed and quilted runners for tables and toppers for smaller tables. I love the colors of red and green, so I use some of these quilted items all year-long.

Do you use your quilted projects to decorate your home? Would a person visiting your home for the first time know you are a quilter by just glancing around? The answer to both questions is yes in my case. Quilts are everywhere -- not just the ones I have made, but antique ones too.

As you get your home ready for the holidays this year, don't forget to add a new quilted item to the mix. It's always fun to move things around -- the change makes it look all brand-new. There is no shortage of things to do to keep me in stitching until next time.