Progress report!
I was lucky enough to have the day off while the weather was absolutely miserable, so no going out for me today. Sat down with my coffee, turned my machine on, and made the executive decision to put my pins and clips away, and cut back on how often I run and iron each block. I also tucked my leader and ender scraps back in their box. If I didn't make some major progress on this thing today, the odds of it ending up as a UFO was very, very high. Finished roughly is better than an UFO, mismatched points and all.
I finished the block I had laying out the last time I updated, and then got to work. If my instincts told me to flip a block over and sew it on the wrong side, I went ahead and did it. If making a seam line up properly meant flipping an allowance the opposite direction for a few minutes? I did that too. I pretty much ignored everything I have been taught about proper piecing and just sewed the way I thought might be easiest for these blocks to go together.
And actually....it turned out okay. The points still (mostly) line up, and aren't any worse than when I took three times as long to pin and press every single seam. I don't need to steam each block unit before piecing either, just a quick press is fine, with the steam at the end. Putting them all together, you can't pick out which ones I did properly, and the ones I did today. I think my flying geese seams on today's batch of blocks have actually lined up better than the ones I spent so much time carefully pinning.
So far today I have finished 7 blocks...more than I was doing in two weeks before. I have four more left to sew this afternoon, and then I can move on to setting triangles!