4-Patch in 4-Patch Layouts

It froze last night, enough to put 1/8th inch of ice on the critters' water bowls.  Two

more nights of freezing temperatures are forecasted, so it looks like I won't get any sewing done until Wednesday.  Time to plan projects rather than sew projects!

Here's the layout of the critter top I posted yesterday.  The completed top, made with 8-inch blocks and 1-inch and 2.5-inch borders, measures 31 x 39 inches.

 This isn't the exact layout that I planned to use.  Somewhere in the sewing process, I got a couple of blocks sewn in different places than I originally planned,  But that's okay.  I still ended up with a cute top that will someday be a cute baby quilt.

Today, I played with Electric Quilt to see what a scrappy Christmas quilt might look like.  Several years ago, I used up a considerable part of my Christmas fabric stash, but last summer I found a hidden stack of Christmas fabrics to replenish that stash.  Since I'm not short on fabrics, I decided to upsize (is that a word?) to 12-inch blocks and use four plain blocks in my design.

A top like this, with 1.5 and 4 inch borders, would measure 47 x 59 inches.

The next step was to play with colors.  I like this version, but I'm not sure how many red and green fabrics I have left.  I think most of my stash is slightly non-traditional: snowmen (blue), gingerbread men (tan), Santa on the farm (red).  Hmmm, that Santa fabric might be perfect for this.