Split 9 Patch Caregivers Quilt

I was looking for a quick quilt I could make for my friend and co-worker Gaila.  I had this idea of making a "caregiver" quilt.  Her husband has cancer and our quilt guild and given him a quilt when he was first going through treatments and surgeries.  I got to thinking about that and thought it would be nice to give one to the caregiver as well since I know from personal experience they spend many nights sitting up in a chair keeping watch over our loved ones and wouldn't it be nice to have a quilt that someone loved over and prayed over to keep them warm.

I had  purchased two charm square packs (5 inch squares) from Amazon last summer when I needed to add to my order to get free shipping.   The fabric is from Moda and it's called "Simple Marks".   I loved the bright colors.  I did a search online for quilts using charm squares and found one at Snippets of a quilter.  So here's how it went together.

First you sew the charm squares into 9 patches.

I had enough to make 9 squares.

Next you cut them down the center in both direction to get 36 new blocks.

Now the fun part was trying to decide which way to lay them out.  I tried several different way but finally went with a totally random arrangement of 7 rows of 5 ( I have one square left over).  It was very overwhelming, all those colors mixed up and jumbled.  I left it laying there on the basement floor until Emily came down and suggested little strips of black around each block. It was the perfect way to "calm" the blocks down.

Here it is before I added the borders.  Of course, Maggie couldn't resist laying on it.  

I ordered border and backing fabric from the same fabric line.  Here is the finished project.

I know several other caregivers and will be looking for ideas for quick quilts to make for them as well.