Your blocks are adorable. I have been doing this for 40 years and have tried everything. I have boxes and trunks full of my work. It ranges from placemats to queensize quilts. While my greatest love is the handquilting process I also love playing with the decorative stitches on my machines and wonderful fancy threads etc. I have a twin size quilt I made with some of my collection of oriental fabrics that is done crazy quilt style using embroidered pieces as the center of each block. It is also embelished with everything I could think of. The last border is made of dimensional half circles of red sateen fabric to resemble oriental coins.
Quilting is what ever you want it to be. I have seen works that incorporated metal, plastic and even wood.
It doesn't have to be your grandmother's blanket.