I think you could make a really effective quilt by using silhouettes.
Put some fusible on the black fabric, draw/trace the poses from some pictures (there are a ton available on the internet), and then fuse those to blocks or place them all over some great background fabric - a multi-colored batik, perhaps.
For the quilting - just outline the figures and then quilt the background to death (so they pop out a bit).
Caryl Bryer Fallert does a similar thing with dance figures:
http://www.bryerpatch.com/gallery/dance_quilts.htm
I think it would be great.
On related note, I happened to read this quite lovely story this morning in the NYTimes:
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/13/fa...ml?ref=fashion