Quilting Design

I have been pondering how to quilt this top. It has some small pieces and I think because of the usage it is going to get I need to do it by machine. Would rather tackle it by hand because of the look it has, but it is going to be used on the couch and the stress of the use may take it's toll on it I roughly played with a design that might work. So many quilts in the magazines say quilt as desired. Well I want it to look nice and be secure besides. An all over design or free motion quilting will get lost in the scrappiness of the quilt. The small squares are going to be lost if you outline stitch each one. The quilting recommendations are 2-4 inches apart for the batting I am using.

I guess texture is the main thing with a scrappy quilt. This is the idea I have in a very rough drawing.

The red line is the quilting design I have come up with so far. It would be more of a perfect design image when I made a stencil to mark it with. I have a lot of difficulty as others do about what would look good. I just get stupid over how to go about doing it. My Mom comes to me over doing things on her quilts and I think boy you came to the wrong person. I am going to play with the look on paper for awhile and see if I can come up with something a little better. I am using black thread for the quilting also. Any suggestions will be welcomed. Chris