My first quilt was a coverlet. I used 12" blocks with 2" sashing and a 4" border. You can either machine quilt it, hand quilt it or tie it. It comes out to 52"x 80". That is 15 blocks. You can make a sampler, which is excellent for a beginner or use all the same design. Whatever you want to you. Your quilt - your rules!!!!! (My quilt - my rules). I always go to Quilter's Cache and pick out my patterns - I have never bought a store bought pattern. Quilter's Cache is absolutely THE best - you can choose from the size of block that you want to make, it will tell you the degree of difficulty, whether you need to make templates, whether it is paper piecing. It gives you the names of the blocks and sometimes it can tell you the origination of the block. The instructions are excellent and I have made more quilts than I can count with these patterns. I have already made several with 35 - 12" blocks per quilt. Or you can make them down to 4" and smaller blocks.
This is where I started and probably where I will end. My last quilt was made out of 35 blocks that I had never seen or made before and then I kept track of each and every block, noted the colors, noted the degree of difficulty, hard or easy, the date and what the quilt was made for. In my case it was a 35 block sampler for my husband for our 51st wedding anniversary, took darn near a year to make, printed up the patterns, five at a time, and put them in a notebook. Now I have a record of this quilt, which I actually do for every quilt I make. Which I think is very important - provenance! Then you have a history of each quilt you make, if it is to be given as a gift, you will have a little book to give to the person with the quilt - it would contain, what kind of day it was, maybe the headlines, little tidbits from your home, perhaps a housekeeping hint or I always put in a recipe to go with each block that I made (15 blocks - 15 recipes). And then at the end of each block story, I always put in a saying, or an adage........"Live simply - Love generously - Care deeply - Speak kindly - Leave the rest to God". Each one different, humorous, reflective, religious, whatever YOU like to express.
I put everything into the computer and when the quilt is done, I recheck the "book", edit it, put in, take out, whatever and print it up, put it in one of those "term paper" booklet thingys. Three hole, plastic, paper, doesn't matter.
Then you give that to the recipient with the quilt, whether you know this person or not and your quilt will have provenance.
I have a quilt from my grandmother. She made it for me and it is a crazy quilt. I recognize some of the fabrics, but some I don't and it would have been nice to know where the fabrics came from. One was a dress she made for me, one was a dress she wore all the time, and a few others. That is what makes that quilt so special to me. But, I would have liked to have known the whole history of it! And, that is why each quilt I give away has a book with it. It takes a few minutes out of each day I work on the quilt, but is very important as an end result.
I hope maybe I have helped you. I don't know how many people do this or if they even have thought of doing it. I have to have all my eggs in a basket and I have to know from whence things came and what they are doing so I can have a complete completion of a quilt (got that??????)
Good luck to you and always be a beginner quilter because when you are not, then there is nothing else to learn and wouldn't that be sad?
Edie