Lady of the Lake . . . ish

This morning I putzed around with the various elements of this project. I had 18 finished blocks (measuring at most 10.25" square), 82 centers (measuring roughly 6.5" square), and a theoretical 720 HTSs (measuring 2.5" square). For starters, how many blocks could I complete with those 720 HTSs? (Counts on fingers--720 divided by 16--ah! Forty-five blocks can be completed.)

Then I wondered what various settings are 'out there' for Lady of the Lake blocks, and how is an on-point setting handled?

That's when I started to notice something: the typical LotL block doesn't look like the 18 that I "inherited".

Sample of the 18 blocks on left, traditional Lady of the Lake block on the right.

I really like the look of the actual LotL and if set on point, I've got plenty of parts to make a twin-sized quilt or two. I would use the 18 bastardized version blocks to make something else.

The CF!Quilters also accept lap/throw-sized quilts, and an on-point setting of 4x5 would create something within their parameters. I'd just need to make two more "wrong" blocks and I could move this project from the back to the front burner!

I turned to the pile of 82 centers, theoretical size of 6.5" square. The odds of finding something that didn't quite hit that size were overwhelmingly in my favor. I was looking for something under 6.5" because the sizes of the existing 18 blocks were under the 10.5" they should've been. Start with an undersized center, and an undersized finished block is sure to follow.

What I found as I examined and measured each center HTS were: two undersized blocks and 8 damaged blocks (sun, mostly, but a couple had something spilled on them).

Top: 72 good-sized blocks, 3 sun-damaged (I found one more later), 3 more sun-damaged

Bottom: 2 undersized, 2 with something yellow spilled on them.

The damaged blocks were pinned together, labeled as such, and set aside to either trim down for another project altogether, or for cannibalization. The two undersized blocks were finished out using the mis-set HTSs I'd removed last year. I'd replaced them with some of the newly-minted HTSs back then, the remainder of which are stacked neatly in their tin, which is why I've been qualifying the "720" as theoretical in this post.

But enough with the numbers--let's look at the design wall!

I started playing with dark squares as fillers, then added the light green as a fer-instance ('cause I was bored with all that white). And then I wondered how things would look if I used yet another HTS to make a faux LotL out of all that negative space.

I switched to black and white so the fact that I was playing with only four colors wouldn't distract me. The first playground, in black and white, for comparison:

I really like the top one, with the horizontal bands of dark and light. The bottom triangles in that mock-up would obviously be dark as well, and the side triangles would be split too.

As it happens, after the last CF!Q meeting I came home with the bin of greens, so I'll have plenty of choices for expanding my existing stash as I create yet more, and larger, HTSs.

When this is done, I'm looking forward to creating an actual Lady of the Lake quilt using correct-sized units (the remaining centers can all be trimmed down to 6.5" square), assembled by one person, using a consistent seam allowance. Bliss!

Added 7/9:

As mentioned in the comments below, I went ahead and tried out a third option for the filler HTSs, and now I'm not sure which I like more--the top half or the bottom half!

Kinda leaning toward the bottom layout that mimics the pieced blocks.