Finishing up the baby quilt

Now that Christmas is thoroughly over (my wife is Russian, so it's not actually over for us until January 8th), the dinky 2 ft tall tree is gone, and we finally over our illnesses, I can get back to quilting.
After a frenzy to finish mom's quilt, I took a few days off to get sinusitis along with my wife.  That was not fun, especially since we had to get on a plane and experience the kind of pain that makes you want to crack your skull open like a walnut to relieve the sinus pressure!  Fortunately, our little baby (who had an ear infection) slept like a baby during both flights.  We were so worried about how she would manage, we forgot to bring meds for ourselves, and had a pretty miserable flight back home.  Better me than her, though!

I had to reorganize my stash after Christmas, because a good friend of mine passed along some his mother-in-law's stash.  Sadly, she passed away this past summer after getting an infection while in the hospital for an unrelated surgery.  Very sad, and quite unexpected.
Anyhow, his MIL was a huge crafter and quilter, and he offered to let me take my pick from some 14 big boxes full of quilting fabric.  As I had to ship it home, I didn't want to go overboard, but they were so generous and happy to see it go to someone who was going to use it, so I kinda did go overboard.  The cost to ship it was about $60, and I'm guessing they gave me roughly 75-100 yards of fabric.

Roughly 80% if the fabric pictured is from my friend!

My stash went from a cardboard box to almost completely filling a small bookcase.  She had lots of softer colors, which contrasts well with the brighter hues I usually buy.  Thanks to Gregg and Mercy for sharing, and I am now planning a quilt for them using their mom's fabrics!

I have already incorporated a few of her fabrics into my sister's baby quilt, which I hope to finish in the next few days.  Once again, I am learning so much through my current quilt, mostly learning what I won't do next time.  I love the color palette of purples, pinks, and teals in this quilt, but I think that choosing such a dark background made picking contrasting patterns difficult.  

Not a great picture, but this is my design wall right now.  You can see that with the dark background, only the dark plum whirlygigs near the corners and the very light colored whirlygigs don't just wash out next to the lavender.  Up close it looks better, but yet another lesson learned through experience!