I don’t know what I was thinking, tackling the assembly of a triangle border row right after wrapping up one of the big sashing segments, which could be attached to other sashing segments, which could, in turn, be attached to other sashing segments.

I didn’t finish that sashing until a week into October, whipped out one small block pretty quickly, and then started on this triangle row. And before I knew it, it was the end of October, and I didn’t think I was going to get my designated bit of sashing (this triangle border row) completed in October.

And sure enough, while I made up a little bit of time, I didn’t wrap this row up until November 2nd (also known as October 33rd).

I think I’ll cut myself some slack though, considering how much other slow quilt assembly I’ve accomplished this fall.

For reasons I no longer remember, I timed myself at a recent quilting retreat in an attempt to discover how long it takes me to hand stitch an inch-long seam, and it comes out to about 2.5 minutes.

I can’t really figure out why I’m so slow (how could it possibly take me 10-15 seconds per stitch?), but I was consistent across multiple timed inches.

There are 27 triangles (13 pieced and 14 solid) in each triangle border row, which means 26 seams, each just over 8 inches long. This means a total of almost 18 feet to stitch.

According to my calculations, that means the stitching alone on a triangle row takes about 9 hours to complete. And that’s not counting needle threading time, seam marking time, pinning time, and swearing-when-it-doesn’t-come-out-right time.

Makes me thankful that I only have one more 9-hour triangle border to go.