You are so smart to work on the HST strips while you're still working on the blocks. Those HST strips are really taking me a lot of time.
How are you doing yours? I'm doing them with paper piecing. I had a friend send me some 1" templates in a strip. All I had to do was copy enough strips, tape them together, and then do the PP. I goofed at first though because I didn't think about the fact that PP is mirror image. It wasn't a hard fix and now I'm back on track. I have 10 HST strips to do for the next row.
Again, you are so speedy on those blocks. This latest one is awesome. (See, I use awesome a lot, too.) I'm enjoying your journey as I continue on mine. Keep it up!