welcome to the QB! I am honored to be the first one to welcome you here. If I am understanding your correctly you want to get the most bang for your buck and get as many different patterns as possible. In that case I would get the layer cake's.Missouri Star Quilt Company does a larger number of good tutorials that are done using layer cakes. Her tutorials are easy to follow and make some very beautiful quilt patterns. The 10 square is a versatile cut and cuts down nicely to make nice 5" square if nothing else and the layer cake will give you pieces from the entire line. I am a yardage person myself when ever possible. I have been looking closer at layer cakes here recently and finding they are the way to go for many projects. Again welcome to the QB