Thanks, everyone. It seems I'm breaking the norm by doing a play-by-play for the quilt fabrication. I hope that's okay.
With each panel being different and meaningful to me, and there only being less than a dozen of them, I was able to remain engaged with the project. I don't know that I have the attention span (or time) to make dozens if not hundreds of small, identical geometric shapes needed for some of the amazing quilts I've seen on this site.
There wasn't much thought given to how I'd arrange the panels, and I knew that I'd need filler material between the panels to make a man-sized quilt. One big enough to fully cocoon me without having my legs sticking out. I chose a heavy black cotton fabric to form the background and backing. I was lucky when I bought the material that I got a boat load (bolt load?) at a big discount from a fabric store that was going out of business. Still, I was shocked how expensive it was. Add in the cost of good batting, etc, and I learned that a decent home made quilt could cost over $200! But then there's enough scraps for another quilt or two, so there's that...
Pics below show that I'm laying out the panels on the background to establish size. Will then cut out the necessary black fabric to sew between the panels to connect them all. To do this, I switch machines to this very cool Singer 301, because I'm done with zigzag embroidering and only need straight stitching, which this does very well. I discovered the 301 when I got a ratty beige one as part of a multi-machine deal on Craigslist. Pic of it below, behind the very nice little Featherweight.
I liked the 301 so much, I sought out an excellent example in black. This machine is all aluminum, runs super-smooth, looks like an old locomotive, and the black/gold color scheme with pinstriping reminds me of the Smokey and the Bandit Trans-Am. Awesome! Got a walking foot attachment for it, too. Bernina is in the background looking on jealously.