Great British Sewing Bee Alteration Challenge: Pants Edition

Yesterday, it was my friend Jenny's hen do (for which I am honoured to be a bridesmaid 😄)

The day started with a creative knicker making party run by a company called Top Drawer Diva. As Jenny said, it was like a giant Stitch and Bitch!! They came to the hall in Rickmansworth, bringing many pants, trims, ribbons and bows, pins, needles and sewing machines with them. We chose a pair of pants and then chose the trims to decorate. 

The finished article

I started by sewing the white lace along the top with 2 rows of size 3 zig zag stitch. Then I did the same with the lace frills around the legs. It's important to note here that if you do put lace trims on, you should make sure that there's a break between the front and back, rather than sewing it all in one go. This is because you want the pants to stretch when you put them on, and if you see around the legs or waist all in one go you won't get that stretch. That's partly why I only did trims on the front. (That and I ran out of time!) Then, I hand sewed the bows on, making sure they were nice and secure. 

Lace trim sewn on with a zig zag stitch and hand sewn bows.

Feeling the green and pink theme!

In hindsight, the pants do look a little big for me, but I'd rather that than they were too tight! If I'd had more time, I'd have used some of the stencils to make a fabric shape to iron onto the back of my pants  with Wonderweb. Next time! 

If you have lots of trims, bows and ribbons at home and are looking for a quick little sewing project, customising pants might be your thing! Just get some cheap cotton pants from Tesco or Primark or wherever, and off you go. I think out of the 20 or so women who were at the event yesterday, only a couple of them had every used a sewing machine before and we all made fab looking pants - either by using a sewing machine or hand sewing). Probably much cheaper than buying from some stores too! 

If you're looking for a hen do activity, these ladies were great! 

Top Drawer Diva

If you check out their Facebook page, you'll find the rest of the photos from the day!

The rest of the day was dinner and a club in Embankment, and a ride on the carousel! A good time was had by all!!

A Dangerous Trip to Hobbycraft

TGIF !! We had my husband's grandmother for dinner tonight, so I picked her up from her house and drove her to ours on my way home from work.

Had time to squeeze in a feel good trip to Hobbycraft before that though! I needed some stuff for Rainbows (American Independence Day crafts - flag and fireworks pictures) so naturally I ended up browsing the store. Always dangerous but I'm particularly pleased with my purchases today! 

Cross stitch kits - thought the sheep one was cute and I can see it in our conservatory. I like the other one for the bedroom because I like the inspiring quote. And also, she's wearing fairy wings: can't go wrong.

It's a unicorn decopatch figure!!! 

I love this fabric! I got the last metre off the roll to make into a little skirt.

Some good summer holiday projects! 😎😍😄

My 9th Love Quilts Square

I've sewn this for Christopher's superhero quilt. He particularly likes Marvel so I chose a Guardians of the Galaxy themed square. The original design came out a little smaller than I thought so I added a Groot themed border. I was going to add a galaxy above the characters and a few planets, but the galaxy was too big and I think it might look too crowded if I added a load of planets! I hope Christopher likes it!

We are Groot
(L - R) Groot, Rocket Racoon, Peter / Starlord, Gamora, Drax)

I've signed up to do 2 more quilt squares: a space themed square for Brandon and a horse themed square for Emily. 

Doctor Who?

This weekend, we hosted my friend Rachel's hen party. We made it a Doctor Who themed party, so I baked some themed cookies.

I found a bow tie cookie cutter in Hobbycraft which was perfect. I decided to make sugar cookies - first time for everything! - and top with blue icing. The sugar cookies were easy enough to make, but they lost their shape in the oven so it was all down to the icing to bring out the shape. I had some practice on some of the cookies and it seemed like I used half a box of icing sugar to create the right consistency, but I'm pleased with the result! There aren't many left in the tin so I'm guessing our guests enjoyed them!  

Bow ties with white sugar pearls

Stars with white chocolate stars

Ok, so they're hardly a professional job, but they tasted good and I can always practice my icing skills!

Baking Bonanza!

Today, Bren and I hosted a barbecue at home - what better reason to start baking sweet treats?? I was inspired by several "She Who Bakes" videos. I'll try and post the links here.

First, I started with the Crunchie Shortbread Bites. Last time I made these I didn't get to eat many of them - they were a huge hit with Bren though!

I also made Strawberry Diamond Puffs and Blueberry Pinwheel Puffs. 

They all tasted scrummy and seemed to be enjoyed by our guests tonight! 

Strawberry Diamond Puffs

Blueberry Pinwheel Puffs

Crunchie Shortbread Bites

A long overdue update!

Oh my word, the time has literally flown by! This academic year has been so full and intense - I've managed to do plenty of crafty activities but forgot to blog! So, here goes!

Cross stitch

This Love Quilt square was completed for Violet - and seemed to take ages! I needed to buy more of the yellow thread! 

This Love Quit square was stitched for Leah - although the green got very dull after a while, I'm very pleased with how this turned out! 

This Love Quilts square was stitched for Pheobe - I love this one! I downloaded the pattern from Pinterest and added the border myself based on something I found on google images. It looked amazing on the finished quilt 😄

This Love Quilts square was stitched for Travis - this one seemed to be quicker second time round! 

This Love Quilt square was completed for Layton - and seemed to take a lot less time the second time round! 

I made this cute little sheep magnet to match my Wee Hieland Coo magnet. It took me a day and now sits proudly on our fridge 😄

This is a wedding sampler I made for my sister-in-law and her husband. I loved sewing this one, especially when the back stitch enhances all the little details!

I finished this project last week. It was a birthday present from Bren - he's suggested that I hang it in the conservatory! 

Other Sewing Projects

I think this is the third year I've had the Christmas stocking project in my box, although I got loads more done, there's still more to go! I'm optimistic I'll finish in 2017!

However, I did manage to make Bren's felt stocking - which he chose himself in case you were wondering why his is far more simple than mine! I finished Bren's stocking in a few days, and it was hanging on our fireplace by Christmas Eve 😄

Our Wedding

So Bren and I finally got married this March! Seeing as I enjoy craft so much, I decided to make as much as possible. 

I made these Save the Date cards using my die cutting machine and some purple card. I then stuck the shapes down with a glue pen and then added a couple of accept gems - they were tiny and fiddly, but looked awesome! 

Thanks go to Lizzie and Katie - 2 of my bridesmaids - who helped me cut some of these shapes out of an evening!

I made these invitations using a pocket fold, and then printed the different sections onto card, making each piece of card a different size so you could see the titles. Unfortunately, I don't seem to have a picture of the front, but I also used my die cutting machine and cream card. 

Ok, so I didn't strictly make these place names, but I did write them all in my very best handwriting!! 

Deco patch initial letters! Isla bought me these ages ago - seemed like a perfect way to use them!

Decopatch postbox for wedding cards! This didn't take as long as I thought it would. I used a purple patchwork paper for most of the box, and a silver band for the rim. 

I made this table plan the night before the wedding! I bought some large purple card from Hobbycraft, printed the tables onto card and trimmed to size. I used a border cutting die to create the lace edges from Ivory card on the die cutting machine and stuck it behind the table cards. I stuck fabric wire butterflies in the top corners and stuck some more diamond jewels underneath like a butterfly flight path. Looked great on the day! 

What's Next?

I currently have 2 cross stitch projects planned - a Love Quilts square and a surprise gift. I've also started to get back into baking and would like to try some tasty treats that I've seen on Facebook (brilliant source of inspiration!) I'm also loving the return of the Great British Sewing Bee, which always inspired me to get behind the sewing machine again! I'm hoping to make a skirt or dress or two soon... Stay tuned!!! 

Bake a Off: Natarajan vs Philipps - Week 2

So, this week it was biscuit week. Hard to say who won this week because somebody (mentioning no names, Bren) ate all of his, *ahem* their biscuits before they could be judged by an independent taster. Fortunately, I have photographic evidence.

Bren:

Bren made chocolate chip cookies using this recipe  

Nikki:

I made gingerbread biscuits, but as I've made gingerbread men before I thought I would give myself the extra challenge and cut a different shape and ice them. I was inspired by this You Tube video
Of course, those are made by experts so they look far better than mine, but I'm a professional biscuit eater so what could go wrong?! 

My Gingerbread Recipe from Mary Berry

I made my own nail varnish bottle template. I know you can buy them (and I will now the challenge has been completed) but I wanted to create everything from scratch like they would have done in the real Bake Off. 

Once I'd baked the biscuits, I left them overnight to completely cool. This was around the time that Bren's biscuits mysteriously disappeared...

Then, I made the icing by mixing 150g of sifted icing sugar with water. You have to add the water gradually - no more than 1 tablespoon at a time. When you're mixing it, you should be looking for a consistency that covers the back of your spoon but also drops off the spoon and moulds back into the rest of the icing easily. If it's too funny you could always reverse the process and put a bit more icing sugar in, just make sure you sift it first.

As you can probably tell, one batch of icing came out better than the other...

Can you tell which icing came out better??!

But they all taste good!! Needless to say, about half of these have gone now lol. But, now I know how to improve here for next time and hopefully they'll be better! And purple =D

So, I guess this week's Bake Off was a draw due to lack of comparative testing. Next week will be bread - which neither of us have done before (I don't think adding ingredients to a bread maker counts for this contest!!). Off to study the recipe books!!