On the Design Wall Today: an Unexpected Project

In my family my siblings and I are on a rotating system for Christmas Gifts.  This year I have my oldest sister, K.  Now, like all sisters, K is pretty special, but in my book she's a little extra special.  After not being able to have their own children, my parents adopted her, and then had four children of their own afterward.  I'm the youngest of the five.  When K was about a year old, she was diagnosed with cerebral palsy.

As she has grown up, she has been a complete joy to all around her.  She loves puzzles, lemon pie, dolls (her babies), children, dancing, and playing bingo.

Here she is dancing at my wedding several years ago:

 For years I've been making simple aprons for her to wear when she eats, as she isn't the most tidy eater.  I end up with 18"x14"-ish scraps of fabric left over from these large bibs, and have been saving them for years too, with the plan to make a quilt for her bed with them.  I was planning to make her some new aprons as well as sending her something else for Christmas this year, but I got an email from my Mom last night telling me what she really needs--a quilt.  She loves to get a blankie and lie down on the couch, but the blankie she has been using is tiny and doesn't cover her feet.  When my Mom suggested this there wasn't any question.  Yes, Christmas is in two weeks and I'm working on two other projects right now, but this can be done.  I pulled out my drawer of apron scraps and cut seven inch squares all from different fabrics.  There are plenty of scraps left that I'll be able to make a bed-size quilt sometime in the near future.  I'm really glad my Mom suggested this--my family is in Ohio and I'm in Utah, so I didn't even think of this as a possible need.  I think it's a great idea.

 So this is what I have so far, the top half and the bottom half.  Looks like a yellow square fell off near the bottom right corner, oops!

K loves bright colors, so I think she will love it.  There is so much variation in these fabrics that it is going to look scrappy, but I can't decide if I like this random layout or if  I want to plan things a little more, maybe setting similar colors on diagonals.  Any thoughts?

When I make her a larger quilt for her bed I'm planning to use a puzzle-piece layout.  I think she'll love that one too, whenever it happens.  It's been a plan for a LONG time.

I'm glad I got a good start on it, but now it's going to hang out on the design wall while I work on quilting a quilt for Brooke over the next couple of days.