Christmas and Baby WIPs

 So!  A couple of days ago I mentioned a couple works-in-progress.  The first one is this:

I got the stars in a miscellaneous box at some point.  They're hand-sewn, about 15.5" square each, and done with very dated fabric.  That said, I couldn't just let the poor things languish!  So at some point in the past I'd pulled and cut the sashing fabrics and bundled them together with the stars.  I'd actually sewn the center part together, so all I did on Christmas Day was sew the borders and nine-patches for the corners and put it all together.  It's only 38 1/2" square, so it will fit on a single width of fabric - which I've already dug out from my Christmas stash and pressed, so the next step involves batting and basting.

There's a bit of bulk in the center of some of the blocks, so I'm thinking maybe feather wreaths for the quilting motifs?  That would allow me to avoid fighting with the bulk....

Also in progress is this:

Gosh I wish I had more of that mermaid print!  But since I only ever had the one fat quarter of it, clearly it was meant for this project.  It looks a little odd here, with just the first row of color added.  But I'm up through the orange row now, and it's looking like it makes more sense.  If my math is right, it'll end up at 58 3/4" x 55 1/4".  Odd size, I know, but the FQ wasn't precisely square to start with, and trimming it so it was left it odd.

Of course, my cousin's child that I'm intending this for is now 9 months old... but given how much of this year I lost creative impetus for, it can't be helped.  Plus I prefer making toddler-sized quilts anyway.  They'll see years more use than crib quilts ever will.

(And in between the rows and pressing, I may have been leader-endering a tree block for my Christmas Trees wallhanging.  It'll get done... eventually.)