Hexagon quilt update the millionth

I know you have all been waiting and waiting for an update on the Pink and Gray Hexagon quilt. It had reached a point where while I was making progress the updates looked very similar and of course all the photos were near identical. I have finally reached a new stage in the quilt. I've basted about 2200 hexies, out of 2900. (Rough numbers. I DO have the exact count, but I am not writing this from home.) I have sewn most of the hexies I have into flowers. I estimate I'm about 80 flowers short, but I'm not 100% certain until I get closer. I have started sewing them together, exciting, right?

I have drawn out a rough idea of what I want the layout to be. This is flexible, if they fit together better in another way I can change it, but it gives me a map to work off of and lets me know approximately what my progress is. I'm sewing the flowers together as indicated on the chart, but I don't always sew all the way around each flower. Right now I'm mainly interested in getting them attached so that I can see where I am, than in a finished solid piece.

In this picture you can see one large piece. These are all connected in some way, tho as you can tell not on all sides. The white arrows point at seams I've done, and the green arrows show what I have yet to sew. Yet if you lay it out on the table, and smooth it down, there are no holes or missing hexies, follow? My idea is that if I do this now, I can stop thinking about layout and placement and just sit down in front of the tv and mindlessly finish all the seams.

If you look super closely at the next picture, at the arrow, you can see a straight pin. Across the open space in the flowered hex there is another pin as well. Those pins are there to point at each other so if I lose track of where the large pieces go I can line them up.  Honestly tho, the more I add the easier it is to keep my place. It's like giant jigsaw pieces. I have three of them done now, and since I started at a corner they all have straight edges to line things up.

I'm somewhere between 1/5 and 1/4 done with the body of the quilt.  In this picture, the ones marked in orange are sewn together, except that I worked on it more since I took this picture and it's actually done all the way to the top edge of the picture.  The graph itself is folded, so you're only seeing 1/4 of the full layout.  The green on the edges will be a row of white/neutrals and then there will be another row of pink outside of that. Or perhaps pink and white. I plan to use up my leftovers in the border.

I have had a TON of help with this one. Every time I spread it out this helpful guy comes over to check on me. He's not at all interested in my needle and thread, but does feel pretty strongly that he needs to hold it all down. He also seems to be a major Friends fan and will stare at the iPad like he's following along.

On  side note, I just saw this episode last week, and I loved it just as much as the first time.

Mike is out of town all week this week, and I made a point to clear the dining room table just to work on this project. I'm considering bailing on all other obligations and seeing just how far I can get. (It's not like I can leave the kids home alone and go run or anything!) My goal for finishing the top has been August 31st of this year. I don't think it's likely that I can do that, but I just noticed that I began the quilt on October 30, 2012. Perhaps I can aim for finishing it by it's 3rd birthday?

I'm linking up with Trish's Inspiration Monday today. Make sure you go over and see what projects everyone else has in the works.