Made some serious progress today :)

We have three more strip sets to QAYG on the top half, and then it's poly pellet time! (The cat wrings his paws with glee)

Press seam open, pin down next strip, and QAYG

Again... we sewed two strip sets (right sides together) to the backing. We folded open the strip sets, pressed open the seam, smoothed down the newly exposed strip set, and then lined up another strip set on top of the strip set we just pressed open, again right sides together.
This post might be out of order, but it might not be, LOL. It's the same thing that we're doing with every seam at this stage...

Cutting Strip set #4, 12" from center

I had to shift the tube a bit in order to cut on the blue starry part of the tube. Don't worry, it will make sense :)

We are getting tiiiiired...

Layout onto quilt backing begins

We centered cut strip set #1 on the backing, and pinned both long edges down to the backing with safety pins (straight pins will poke us, repeatedly!).

We will be using cut strip set #1 as our guide to lay out the rest of the strip sets. Cut strip sets #2 and #5 will be sewn on either side of #1.

design decision... cutting strip sets (fuzzy math)

We have to cut the strips (in half) to size before we sew the end blocks on. (See previous post re: too confusing to describe what I discovered I had to change)
Read the directions three times, measure twice, cut once.
In related news, I have a headache. LOL

more trimming selvage/ends

I trimmed the other end as well. This led to a design decision that would be ridiculously confusing and pointless to describe, LOL... remember, what matters most is that you're happy in the end!

preparing strip ends for end blocks

I like to check the waste to make sure I got all of the selvage off, instead of disturbing each of the layers to check, since they are stacked and ready for the other ends to be trimmed already.

pressing strip sets

And yes, I pressed them closed and then open...