The Biscuity Workshop with Nikki McWilliams

You may have seen on my Facebook or Instagram that a couple Saturdays ago I was lucky enough to spend the day with Nikki McWilliams and a lovely group of ladies at Hill Street Design House making Biscuit themed clutch bags.

You might recognise Nikki's name from my Wish List Wednesday post a year ago about her Tunnock's Tea Cake cushion that I fell in love with. Nikki is a Scottish designer, has her own blog and one of the best Instagram accounts you'll find! Her home ware and accessories label launched in 2009 and was inspired by 'a love of British culture, contemporary Pop-Art and her fascination with the ritual of the Tea Break'. You can check out the full range on her website!

The workshop was one of my Birthday presents from Martyn (after a very large hint). We all had to be at Hill Street Design House, on Hill Street, for the class starting at 11am. I wore my Collectif Dolores top, skinny highwaisted jeans, new red pumps and, of course, my custard cream brooch.  

The bright room was laid out beautifully with a big pink covered central table covered in craft supplies and plates piled high with biscuits! Everyone took a seat and Nikki introduced herself and explained the plan for the day. We were all making biscuit-inspired clutch bags with our own designs using simple printing and sewing techniques.

Nikki demonstrated set up our fabric for printing and folding for sewing. she then showed us how to mix the acrylic paint and printing medium then how to print on the fabric using craft foam designs we had to create. We had brown or cream fabric to choose from for chocolate or vanilla biscuits and I chose the cream as I wanted to create a Nice biscuit bag.

We all settled in and started drawing and cutting out our designs, there were some great ideas and we were all chatting and helping each other with ideas, Nikki was floating around the room checking out or designs and offering help where it was needed.

Before we knew it it was time to start printing, Hannah who was sitting by me was doing a custard cream design so we decided to share paint and Nikki helped us mix up the perfect biscuity, creamy yellow.

I think the printing is the most nerve wrecking bit, making sure we didn't print letters the wrong way up, making sure they didn't smudge or even just spill and splatter everywhere! Nikki introduced us to the concept of Wabi-Sabi which roughly translates from Japanese as 'Finding the beauty in Imperfections' which I just love and can totally relate to. Most things that I craft have an imperfection somewhere but I like to call 'Character'. 

I was very happily surprised with how mine turned out, it had just the right amount of 'Character'. We had a break for lunch while the paint dried and when we returned it was time to sew them up and embellish them. The table was covered in wool, ribbons, pompoms, pompom makers, beads, ricrac and all a girl could need to jazz up her biscuit bag. 

We glued craft foam to what would become the inside front and back of our bags and folded them up, sew stitched up the side while it was inside out and them turned them out. We were left with envelope style clutch bags that just need the top flap tidied up with a couple more stitches and we were ready to embellish. 

I love a pompom but I also wanted to keep my bag quite simple so I chose the bright yellow ribbon with mini pompoms all along it, simplicity isn't my strong suit. I stitched the pompoms along the edge of the envelope opening and then made a wee bow that I popped on the back too. Everyone was having a ball making pompoms and tassels it was infectious so I made a tassel for the side of my bag from some thin ribbons in the yellow I'd used for my bow, blue and violet.   

I'm so happy with the final product and was so inspired by all the ladies around me and their creative designs, we had Kit Kats, bourbons, custard creams, jammy dodger and party ring designs too. 

Once we had all finished up, or at least as far as some of the overly adventurous were going to get, we took them all outside so we could take some pictures in the good light and Nikki even took a wee Boomerang video. 

I had an amazing day, it was lovely to meet some lovely new creative ladies as well as Nikki McWillliams herself and check out Hill Street Design House too. I know Nikki is running more of these workshops and Hill Street run events like this all the time making all sorts like jewellery, lingerie and flower crowns as well as hosting private events too. So keep an eye on both of them.