Thank you all so much for the help. Seems like a 9 to 14" is what I should be going with here. I plan to use 1 1/2'' strips for the blocks. When finished I wanted to put a white ruffle around the quilt. I'm also going to make 2 pillow shams to match, but will be using a much smaller paper pieced block {4"} for those. They too will have a white ruffle around them.
I may use beige, depending on my color choices. That will be the hardest part for me!
memaw4