oh dear, what to do with these diamond wedding ring remnants?

***FYI:  I've updated the main DWR post with (proper) photos***

After spending every waking (…and sleeping) hour working away on my NYCMQG dwr entry, I can promise you one thing—I've got more to show for it than this:

Much more.  In fact, five times more, to be exact.

As some of you may know, I originally envisioned this as a king-sized, 8x8 ring quilt (64 in all).  I don't know if it was tunnel vision or merely blind optimism, but until Sunday afternoon I persevered, up to that point having cut 7776 pieces from about a dozen gray oakshotts,

pieced said oakshott confetti into 648 diamond eighths to yield 81 round cut gems,

Yes, lots of the 'shotts were lost in the seams.  The silver lining?
Their thin weight actually lends itself quite well to small-scale paper piecing ;)

cut background pieces and "letterpressed" a select few of 64 centers,

(Sidebar:  The letter-pressed element was lost in the challenge quilt.)

cut 1728 A, 576 B, and 576 (of my own) C template pieces from over 200 liberty prints,

I sorted the arc wedges by value to ensure plenty of glow (with the lowest value prints bordering the diamonds).

pieced 288 arcs,

pressed 288 arcs,

Tip:  Even if you're piecing the arcs, do yourself a favor and get the solid arc template, too.
You can use it to trace "cheat lines" onto an old ironing board cover for simple, accurate pressing.

and assembled nearly every last one of 144 "melons."  At which time an unfortunate light bulb went off in my head:  there was absolutely no way I could quilt and bind a king-sized top in one afternoon, let alone assemble said top.  Gasp.  How could I have let months of planning and preparation result in such so-close-yet-so-far failure?

After all, I had known about the competition since first stumbling upon Faith's post in July during a study break from my con law outline.  And then during a September trip to England, I hijacked any sightseeing plans my husband potentially had in mind and replaced them with (my) high-priority supply trip to Liberty and Shaukat (fortunately my husband, cousin and her boyfriend were all uber-impressed with Liberty).

The fix?  Use 24 of the 144 melons (three from each colorway) to piece a 3x3 ring design, maintaining the integrity and spirit of the original concept without the excessive (albeit symbolic) number 8.

But you already knew that (hence the entry post and opening photograph).  But what you likely didn't realize before reading this is that I have 120 (24x5) pieced melons leftover from this madness (15 each in 8 colorways:  hot pink, red, orange, yellow, green, turquoise, indigo, violet).

Which means I can:

(1) make a queen-size quilt (7x7 rings) without have to cut into any more fabric
(2) replenish the melon supply using some leftover arc wedges and move forward with the king quilt as previously planned
(3) make several more smallish quilts to (a) giveaway as gifts, or (b) sell to recoup some of my outlandish material costs.  ...No joke.  I'm aware that all sorts of talented and lucky bloggers get free fabric delivered to their doorstep these days, but I can assure you I am not one such individual (yet).  (Hey, a dreamer can dream, right?)

So.  What do you think I should do? 1? 2? 3? None of the above?  Your help, as always, is greatly appreciated :)

Linking up with Lee!