Snails Assembly

I've completed 21 snail blocks now, and have a max of 9 more orphan blocks that will work for shells for more blocks.   However, I don't actually know how many blocks I'll need to make the quilt fit my bed.   As a result, I figured I'd better start putting some of them together so I can get an idea of how many more I need to make. 

I'm just hoping to not have to make too many new blocks in order to finish this quilt, but the odds are that I'll have to make some because I'm running out of orphans that will work for the blocks.  I'm almost tempted to go see what I could buy on ebay in the way of orphans....but won't....lol.

To that end I started playing around with layouts for the first band of blocks.   To make things easier for me, I've been making blocks based on grids that are multiples of 3".  While I'll have lots of partial seams in the assembly of this, the common grid will make it easier to put together.

First layout had the snail blocks right next too the rest of them.  Didn't like this layout too much...

Onto the 2nd pass - added in orphan blocks with WOW backgrounds as filler blocks.   Starting to look better to me.

3rd pass for this first section, swapped out one of the orphan blocks with a different one and pieced filler sections for the open areas from smaller orphan blocks and block sections. 

This is about 42" wide and about half width of what I'm figuring for the finished quilt before a final border.  It is approximately 33" tall at this point.   I'm figuring I'll need about 2 1/2 sections, maybe 3 full sections for the finished quilt.  It will probably finish out at a king size because I like like my quilts to hang down over the sides of my queen sized bed.

Gratitudes:

1. My knee is definitely getting better, altho it still likes to give me fits when I drive.

2. Spring is here and the trees are filling with new leaves.