One mistake I made when first starting to quilt was picking a project that was too large, ie. a king size bed quilt. That one I finally got rid of, unfinished, and rarely even think of it. So, start with something smaller, maybe a wall hanging of the pattern you'd like to make into a bed quilt. Work out the challenges on that first smaller one.
As to colors: does the recipient have a color scheme going in that room to match? Or does she want to start a new color scheme? This depends upon the recient's ability with color.
This is an example of something I've done. As part of the healing process a friend (she had nursed her dying husband for over a year) wanted to get her bedroom decorated. She had curtains she wanted to match. And she had several yards of a matching fabric, md light torquoise. When asked what color she wanted with it, she immediated responded yellow. (Not my choice.) I selected several patterns for her choice to determine how many colors we needed and how much of each fabric. We went through our 2 stashes and selected more fabrics (we didn't need to buy anything). When the center was finished, there was enough fabric to make 2 narrow borders. The she and I went to the fabric store to choose the final large border, with her's as the final vote. It's on my quilt frame now (she also chose the pattern and thread color for quilting). She was here yesterday and wanted to watch as it got quilted. She said, "No one's ever done something so nice for me." The choices she made were definitely not the ones I would have made. But it's definitely her's and will fit very nicely into her bedroom. (A picture will be posted when I get it off the frame.)
So my advise is, make sure the fabric choices fit the recipient.