addition obsessed- and help needed

So clearly I get a bit obsessive over various things.  They are generally short lived, but amidst  the obsession, I cannot help but over-produce.  For instance, I am currently slightly obsessed with the pieced plus signs I have been seeing all over blogland.  I have thus far started (2) "practice" pieces in anticipation for a large quilt concept once I like the final product.

I have been toying with the idea for a month or so, but finally decided to give it a shot.  Now, something you need to know about me - I LOVE getting inspiration from you all, but I also like the challenge of re-creating something I see without actually following a given tutorial.  (I do use patterns and tutorials from time to time - especially if someone picked out something in particular - ie// my Mom's quilt - or if I am trying a brand new technique that I lack confidence in).  It gives me greater pleasure in completing when I can say that I am also improving my spatial skills at the same time.
Remember, I am mostly on a fabric purchase break - so I decided to use up some of a leftover layer cake from last year.  I didn't have a full layer cake that I wanted to use for practice, so this ended up being a VERY strange size!!

With the above in mind, I decided to "wing-it" when it came to this plus pattern idea.  It is a generally simple row by row concept - the biggest challenge is sizing.  squares are pretty easy - I just cut each piece of the layer cake into 3.25" squares so I could get 9 squares out of each piece.  Once cut, I laid out 5 pieces of one pattern and began building from there.  Clearly I could use some work on coordinating colors/patterns for the biggest impact.  (I tend to put different patterns next to each other - but need to be more aware of the size and general saturation level of each.  After I finished and sewed it all up, I definitely think I needed more of the "solid" pieces to help make the other prints stand out more.)  I sewed each row and Voila - a pieced "addition" AKA plus pieced top.  Now, if only I knew what to do with a "quilt" top that was this really awkward size!!!  Hmmmmm - note to self - stop making mini quilts that are too big for anything and too small to be useful!!

Because I didn't love the colors (or size) of this when I got done, I decided to repeat with some charm size swatches I received as a thank you for hosting a deal a few months ago.  Charms meant that I needed to adjust sizing.  I didn't want too small of squares, so I decided to adjust the plus design a bit.  I cut the charms in half first (= 2.5"x5").




Then I took ONE of those halves from each charm and cut it in half again (so I had [2] 2.5"x2.5" squares and [1] 2.5"x5" pieces).
Okay - here is where I'm stuck.  I tried several different methods of laying out the pieces to try to maximize the prints and the overall plus design.

Option A (mostly ruled out - but now re-considering a bit):

option 1:

option 2:

option  3:

Going to be linking up with: