Armchair Caddies in triplicate

I was blessed to get some time with my lovely sewing besties this weekend.  It wasn't enough time as always, but we did much catching up, a smidgin of stitching and had a few giggles, too.

You may remember I had a lot of fun making an armchair caddy myself earlier this year, so I tripled the fun and in honour of our meet up I made one for each of them (pattern from Sedef Imer's lovely book, Zakka Home).

With a little help from friendly types on IG re fabrics for Judith's caddy, I made fabric pulls and got stitching. 

This time I made the binding as per the book instructions and it definitely looks neater than the wider binding I used on my own (because I already had it left over). 

I also switched the little button tag on the pattern for an embroidered name tag (mainly because my button stash just wasn't up to it). I think it looks ok.

 I'm having a hard time deciding which is my favourite because I love all of the fabric combos.

What I do think is funny is that, not knowing that I was making a gift for Judith, the IG responders to my fabric cry for help overwhelmingly voted for the denim essex linen background above the natural shades and the darker navy I had offered up as choices.  I mean, denim essex for the queen of denim makes - how much more appropriate could it get?!

Of course, I was also the recipient of beautiful gifts too.  We all agreed it was like Christmas morning during our gift swap, only better because we knew we were going to like what we opened!!  Trudi made each of us a stunning Clearly Carry All pouch (pattern by Zeriano). Trudi made this is my favourite ever Bonnie and Camille Ruby fabric and added gorgeous embroidery detail on the contrasting linen.  Judith made us all tweed kantha drawstring bags and each had a humorous mug inside.  My mug says 'I might look like I'm working but in my head I'm sewing'  - oh how apt!  Mind you, one of the other mugs said 'I sew because punching people is frowned upon' - that could have been for me, too ;-)  Di gifted us all the Cake District reusable shopping bags from Booths which we all very much appreciated since our sewing skills are fairly well matched to our cake eating abilities! Di also has little pouches for us with thread snips, a needle thread (which given the poor state of my eyesight is going to come in handy) and then two beautiful woodturned gifts made by her lovely husband.  We each received a little wooden Christmas tree and a stunning little wooden needle case - it really is divine!

So, you see, we sewing besties #threadsacrossthesea really know how to spoil each other, and it's no wonder that we really love getting together when we can.