I know how you feel, my good fortune was meeting a lady who had antique quilt tops that no one in her family wanted; and no one in my family passed down anything much less quilts!
I have two quilts that I want to try for charity quilts, one from our forum and the other is from Art Gallery Quilts.
http://www.quiltingboard.com/t-15750-1.htm using a block called Gretchen. The other you will have to give your email address to get the pattern.
http://www.artgalleryfabrics.com/projects/index.shtml The pattern is featuring Girly Girl Collection. You might be able to look at the picture and figure out how its made without getting the pattern. It's similar to a snowball block with only two opposing sides squared off, then the four smaller sections are pieced together to form octagon-shaped block.
Hope these give you some ideas. Chris