Five Strips Down on Stephen's Quilt

It's not as easy as I thought to have unplanned, variable length strips! The first three strips I sewed together were ripped apart and I started again. I think that this time I may be on a roll with Stephen's quilt. What I found was that each strip is best assembled in a more random pairing of lights/darks than going from a dark to light progression. In any event, I'm getting into the groove with this now and love the blues. Stephen preferred a dark red over the orange-red, so you see one orange-red in the first strip on the left, but the rest will be dark red. I prefer the orange-red, but this is Stephen's quilt and I want to please his choice if possible. What you see in the photo is about the top half of the first five strips which are 64" long; with these done, I feel that I've accomplished something for today, although most of the day consisted of the struggle. Now it's time to finish that glass of Merlot I've been sipping while sewing.