Belated July makes

I know it's not WIP Wednesday ... it's Tardy Thursday for me.  Last night I fell asleep putting the baby to bed and woke up this morning fully clothed on the floor next to her.  I guess I'm tired!

I am as surprised as anyone that I did manage to do a little sewing in July - mainly hand sewing in the evening on the sofa.  First up, I finished the binding on my Union Jack pillow:

Quite why I didn't put a nice fat pillow inside this before taking the photo, I'm not sure.  Maybe I was just excited to get something finished for once.

I have also been plugging away at my hexagons.  Here's where they were up to yesterday morning:

Hopefully I will be able to post an updated picture quite soon as I have done half of the next ring (in red) so if I keep doing a few hexies a night I should get that next ring done soon.  Then it will be jumbo cushion-sized so I will square it off and get it made up.

I was wishing that I had bought the half-hexagon paper pieces to square it off before I realised that I can just cut some whole hexagon templates in half - duh.  I have enough hexagons left to make another cushion to match although I think I might make that one with a random layout rather than in rings.

I keep seeing lovely colourful new collections like Chicopee, Lilybelle and Indie and it is taking all of my willpower not to buy oodles of it.  Every year there are so many collections that I love but I can't justify buying because my sewing speed is just not as fast as my (alarming) purchasing speed.

How do you decide which lines to buy and how much?  And do you buy FQ bundles, pre-cuts, random yardage?  One of my problems as a fabric collection fascist is my preference to have the backing & binding to match from the same collection, which means I need to decide in advance roughly what I am going to make.  But again, my project planning speed does not run as fast as my purchasing speed.

Cup of tea & biscuit time I think.

Gertie xxx