Pictou Lodge Retreat September 2017

The Mayflower's Quilters' Guild has a three day quilt retreat at Pictou Lodge every second year.  I believe this year was the 30th year, although it was only the 3rd time I have attended.  I decided I wanted to work on a Double Hour Glass Quilt based on a tutorial by Cluck Cluck Sew.  She used 2.25" strips she cut herself, but I used 2.5" strips from a Jelly Roll as well as background strips I cut myself.  I was able to get nine triangles from each strip set so was able to make two "matching" blocks and one block with four different sections.

Here is the tutorial:  http://cluckclucksew.com/2009/09/tutorial-double-hourglass-blocks-easy.html

The Jelly Roll I used was Bright Sun by Sherri & Chelsi by moda. This is my first time using a Jelly Roll.

I tried using up almost every block I had sewn and came up with the following layout:

I didn't really like it so tried rearranging the yellow center blocks but still wasn't satisfied:

Several other people gave me some advice and I was convinced by one person  to try it with the blocks on point and by another to not try and use every block and I came up with this much improved layout:

I was able to get it fully pieced into a top including the triangular background edge pieces before the retreat was over.  It is now in the to be quilted pile and I also have twenty-six leftover Double Hourglass blocks I did not use which are available for another project.  Funny how one project breeds another one!