Our January Meeting

When we planned the Bake Natter and Roll programme for 2018 we thought that January would be the perfect time to think about patchwork quilts - what better time than a dark, chilly evening to appreciate a warm, handmade quilt? And our first WI meeting of the year did not disappoint as our speaker Brigitte Gillespie showed us her beautiful patchwork quilts and conjured up images of cosy evenings snuggled up on the sofa, as well as impressed us with how intricate the designs were.

The hall looked lovely decorated with gorgeous quilts! Brigitte was interesting and funny, and answered lots of questions from members.

Inspired by this display we're planning a possible project and hope to get lots of members involved in creating a Bake Natter and Roll patchwork quilt which we can use as a WI tablecloth for our monthly meetings!

It was also our 2nd birthday! We celebrated with a yummy cake made by our President Cat.

Treasurer Miriam was kept busy receiving subs, and lots of members signed up for upcoming events.

At the end of the evening we considered the 5 resolutions shortlisted for consideration as national WI campaigns and each selected the one we would most like to see go forward.

It was a lovely start to our 2018 meetings, and now we're looking forward to trying some creative writing next month!

Craft and Coffee Wednesday

Hello there,

Welcome back to Bake, Natter and Roll's Blog - we hope you're well today.

Today we're sharing a new post with you - time to take five minutes out of your busy day and take a peek at a quick craft project! We're a crafty bunch at Bake, Natter and Roll and we thought you'd enjoy seeing some of our makes.

Today we have a quick and easy Mod Podge project to jazz up some boring old glass jars to use as storage jars. All you need for this project is your glass jars, some pretty decoupage paper, a jar of Mod Podge and a brush....

Never heard of Mod Podge before? Basically it's a water based sealer glue finish which can be used on all surfaces. It's non toxic and the one I use has a gloss finish.

Using the product is a simple case of building up layers of the decoupage paper on your jar, using the Mod Podge to stick and seal the paper. You can add as many or as few layers of paper as you want - the more you use the denser the finish.  The Mod Podge dries into a clear, glossy finish...

It's a really quick and easy way to jazz up your old jars! 

I used mine to store my sewing scissors on my (messy) sewing table....

We'd love to see your Mod Podge projects - send us a photo to our Twitter page!

Pop back next week for another Coffee and Craft Wednesday!

Thanks for popping by today,

The Bake, Natter and Roll Committee

The Denman Experience

Hello there,

Welcome back to Bake, Natter and Roll, the Farnham WI blog.

As a newly formed WI group we are always learning new things about the Women's Institute and today we're sharing with you a little about Denman.

So what's it all about then, we hear you cry....

Denman offers a wide variety of day and residential courses in cookery, craft and lifestyle. Set in the picturesque village of Marcham, in Oxfordshire, the Georgian mansion and seventeen acres of grounds provide the perfect atmosphere for learning.

Denman (from website)

With over 500 day and residential courses to choose from, Denman offers one of the widest ranges of short courses in the UK.  Guests can choose from day schools or two to four night residential courses, led by tutors with vast experience in their field and a passion for imparting their knowledge to others. Courses range from novice to experienced and everyone is welcome — men and women, members and non-members.

A sample of the courses available.....

WI Baking Weekender

World Street Food

A Taste of Italy

Polymer Clay Jewellery

Festive Willow

Leatherwork: From Belts to Bracelets

Family History for Beginners

Gardening: Three Famous Gardeners

Music Appreciation: Gershwin and Porter

There is something for everyone!

Guests who opt for a residential course get to stay, eat and relax at Denman as well. All of Denman’s sixty-nine en-suite bedrooms are designed and furnished by WI members — providing a unique and individual feel to each room. Guests also enjoy mouth-watering meals, sourced from local farms and independent suppliers, including a wide range of regional and seasonal recipes.

For more information about Denman and the current courses on offer, please visit their website.

Thank you for popping by today,

The Bake, Natter and Roll Committee

Time for some Easter Crafting - Part 1

Hello there,

Welcome back to the Bake, Natter and Roll blog - here at Farnham WI we love a spot of crafting and with Easter just around the corner we thought we would share some Easter crafts with you.

Today we're starting with a really simple papercraft, which is perfect for giving mini eggs to friends and families this Easter. We've been making paper carrots....

All you need to make this cute little gift bag is some orange card, some green ribbon and some basic craft supplies (pencil, ruler, scissors, hole punch and sticky stuff).

First you need to create a template for your gift bag - I started by creating the shape for one side of the carrot and then I used that to create the full template. You'll need four of the sides, plus a little tab for gluing everything together....

I made my basic triangle shape 12cm x 8.5cm and then added a curved arc to the top, so it looked a little like an ice cream cone.....

Once you have cut your template out, you need to score along the long lines between each side of the carrot shape. You'll also need to score a line across the top edge of the triangle shape....

Once you have finished scoring all the lines you can start folding. 

Make sure you fold the arc shape inwards.....

Finally you need to punch holes in the top of the arc shapes, this is for threading the ribbon - so pick your punch size/shape depending on your ribbon width. Once you have punched the holes, you can fold the carrot shape and stick the tab in place.

The finishing touch is the green ribbon, which keeps the carrot together at the top but also looks like carrot leaves......

A very simple, but cute Easter project....

If you give this craft a go we'd love to see the results - send us a photo on Twitter or via our Facebook page! 

Thank you for popping by today,

the Bake, Natter and Roll Committee

Bake, Natter and Roll First Fair!

Hello there,

Welcome back to Bake, Natter and Roll, the Farnham WI blog!

Last weekend we had a stall at our first community fair! If you've popped by before you'll know just how talented our members are....and so when we heard that the United Reform Church was holding a spring fair we knew we needed to have a stall!

Our first Bake, Natter and Roll handmade stall!

We asked our fab members for donations....and they came in thick and fast! 

Our bakers made us all kinds of sweet treats from welsh cakes and bug biscuits to chocolate fudge cakes to an Icelandic yogurt cake - our customers were spoilt for choice!

Bake, Natter and Roll homemade treats!

We also had a wonderful selection of handmade items donated, including pretty crochet bunting, handmade cards, flower brooches and hair slides, felt brooches, teacup pin cushions and wooden mother's day hangers.....

Bake, Natter and Roll - handmade crafts!

The fair was open from 9:30am - 1:30pm and it was lovely to meet so many members of the local community. We enjoyed telling people all about Bake, Natter and Roll! It was also lovely to see some of our members who popped by to say hello!

We're now planning other local events to attend during 2016 - keep your eyes peeled for more information on dates and locations!

Thank you for popping by today,

the Bake, Natter and Roll Committee

Our Members

Hello there,

Welcome back to Bake, Natter and Roll, the Farnham WI blog!

As a shiny new WI we are often asked about our members - everyone wants to know what they're like, what type of ladies have joined us.

When we set up Bake, Natter and Roll we really didn't know how many people would be interested in joining us or what they would be like. Our motto is that we're for the young and young at heart and our programme includes a mix of traditional activities and more modern pursuits - what impact this would have on membership we didn't know!

However, we are incredibly lucky as we are already at capacity with 80 members and another 40 ladies on our waiting list! And probably the best way to describe us is like a big bag of Liquorice Allsorts - we have members of all ages young and old and from all backgrounds! The one thing we can say about our members is that they are a talented bunch!

From baking to crafting, from jewellery making to singing and painting - we are discovering that we have lots of skills  and talents in the group! And today we thought we'd share some of our recent makes and bakes.....

Alex's homemade afternoon tea spread

-created when teaching a friend to bake...

Jen's wall painting, 

created on a playroom wall.....

Emma's homemade Welsh cakes, 

made on St David's Day.....

Eve's necklace, 

which has been submitted to the Eileen Bowler competition.....

 Kate's patchwork cushion...

Rachel and Helen's acoustic group - 

Little Iris.....

Lydia's scrummy cakes - 

a triple layer peanut butter cake a sunken Nutella cake....

Olivia's indoor Igloo....

Shauneen's fabulous masks.....

And this is just a small selection of the items that have been shared on our Facebook page recently! It's brilliant to be part of a community of ladies who are so diverse in their skills and happy to share their talents with the group.

Pop back over the coming months as we share more of our makes and bakes!

Thank you for popping by today,

Bake, Natter and Roll Committee

Craft Time....Let's make fabric flowers!

Hello there,




Welcome back to Bake, Natter and Roll - the Farnham WI blog!

At our first meeting in January we did a spot of speed crafting and previously we shared with you how to make Cat's gorgeous paper flowers - today we've got the instructions for Miriam's fabric flowers.

Sew a straight running stitch along a strip of material, leaving about ½ cm from the edge of length and making stitched about 1 cm apart.

You can begin to pull and ruffle as you go.  Don’t pull too hard or it will break your thread.  Just pull slowly.

Keep pulling the thread slowly until it wraps around into a ruffle flower shape

Turn your flower to the back side and sew a few stitches with knots in the back (especially where the two ends of fabric meet). This will finish up your flower.

Add a jewel or a button to the center!

Simple yet effective - you can attach a clip or pin to the back of the flowers to turn them into pretty accessories.

The original concept for this project comes from The Crafting Chicks

If you've made one of these flowers why not show us? Take a photo and post it on our Facebook page! 

Thank you for popping by today,

The Bake, Natter and Roll Committee

Craft time - Let's make paper flowers

Hello there,

Welcome back to Bake, Natter & Roll - the Farnham WI blog!

One of our crafts at our first WI meeting in January was paper flowers. These are easy to make, but look great and can be used to decorate all kinds of things.

Cat made them to decorate presents last Christmas

You will need:
Brown paper
Stamps, ink & glitter paint (or other decorating materials)
Card for petal templates
PVA glue
White paper

To make the flowers:
1. First you need to decorate the brown paper. Get creative for this part - Cat used stamps, glitter paint and tipex for her flowers.
2. Cut out a template for your petal shapes - 1 smaller and 1 larger. Try different shapes and sizes to create different flowers.
3. Use the template to cut out the petal shapes - you will need approximately 5 or 6 of each size for every flower.
4. Next cut out a small rectangle of white paper to make the stamens.
5. Cut the top third of the paper into narrow strips and then roll it up tightly before sticking the end down using a small amount of PVA glue. Fan out the cut end and voila - you have a stamen.

6. Now crumple each of the petals to give the flower a more natural look when finished - don't be afraid to give them a really good crumple as it gives the petals a great texture.
7. Starting with the smaller petals, use the glue to attach them one at a time to the rolled end of the stamen, overlapping them slightly.

8. Once you have added the small petals repeat for the larger petals, overlapping the smaller petals.

9. When complete, fan the petals out to open up the flower

As you can see these flowers are really pretty and can be used to adorn many different things.....

They can also be as unique as you, as the decoration on the petals is designed by you.

So what are you waiting for - why not give it a go....and don't forget to pop by our Facebook page and show us your make!

The original idea for this project is from A Piece of Rainbow blog.

Thank you for popping by today,

the Bake, Natter & Roll Committee

Our First Meeting - January 2016

Hello and welcome back to Bake, Natter and Roll - the Farnham WI blog!

On Thursday 21st January we officially became a WI group, with 69 ladies signing up to be members on the night. If you've popped by our blog previously you will know a little about our history and why we started this group, so today we're going to tell you a little bit about that first meeting.

As you might have guessed from our name we love a spot of cake and so a cake table will be a regular feature of our monthly meetings.....

Lydia and Laura preparing the cake table

Currently members of the committee have been providing the rather scrummy cakes at each meeting, but in the future we are looking to run a cake rota with our members....any willing volunteers please get in touch!

The scrummy cakes - which was your favourite?

As with anything new there is always a little nervousness that people might not turn up on the night, we might have prepared all that cake and have no one to eat it! 

But we shouldn't have worried - word had spread on social media and we had a queue of lovely ladies waiting to join us when we opened the doors at 8:15pm....

Our membership queue

It was very exciting to see our first official member sign up....

Our first member!

At the first WI meeting there is a certain amount of official bits and pieces that you need to complete in order to form the WI officially. We had our local WI Advisers join us again, and following a general welcome from our President Cat, they shared a little history of the WI with us. 

Did you know that the first Women's Institute was formed in Ontario, Canada? To find out more about the fascinating history of the WI visit their website.

Next came the voting - first an agreement that the WI should form and second that the members were happy with the proposed committee....luckily for us everyone was happy....

You voted yes!

Next came the signing of the constitution, which was done by our president Cat and our Secretary Laura....

Laura and Cat sign the constitution - making us an official WI

Once all the official bits were finished the fun could commence and we dedicated the rest of the evening to crafting. The original idea was to hold a speed crafting session, with ladies moving between tables to try the crafts. But as we found out....it's quite hard to move over 70 ladies in a small-ish hall!

Let's craft!

Instead we decided to move the crafts around and everyone got to try one or two of the following:

pom pom making ...with forks

fabric flowers

paper flowers

There was plenty of nattering as the crafts got underway.....

Pom pom making!

And ladies enjoyed showing their makes...

Finished paper flowers

A paper flower being modelled

Ladies also had the opportunity to sign up to the various interest groups which will start running soon - from gardening to wine tasting from papercraft to pudding club, there really is something for everyone! More information to follow soon.

Everyone who attended the evening also went home with a lovely goodie bag which included our provisional programme (beautifully designed for us by Helix) and also some lovely goodies donated by Neals Yard in Farnham .

Our beautiful programme designed by Helix

All in all it was a very successful first meeting and we can't wait to see everyone again next month. 

Our next meeting is on Thursday 18th February where we will be enjoying an introduction to mindfulness with speaker Suzette Jones....and of course we will be enjoying a spot of cake!

Don't forget to pop by our Facebook page or Twitter to see our latest news!

Thank you for popping by today,

the Bake, Natter & Roll Committee

A new beginning....

Hello and welcome to the Bake, Natter & Roll blog!

We are a brand new Women's Institute (WI) group based in Farnham, Surrey who meet on the third Thursday of every month. This Thursday night was our first official meeting and we welcomed 69 new members - which is amazing!

Bake, Natter & Roll - The Farnham WI Committee

But before we tell you about our new adventures, why don't we share a little of our history with you....because you can't just start a WI. 

Our journey began last year when our co-founders Cat and Kate decided that Farnham was missing a group where women could make new friends, learn new skills and share experiences. They liked the idea of joining a WI group, but couldn't find one locally that suited the experience they wanted....so they decided to start their own!

Cat started a Facebook page to gauge interest in a group like this and was overwhelmed by the amount of ladies who responded. An initial meeting was arranged with a WI Adviser to talk about the idea some more and to see if there were enough willing volunteers to form a committee. Interest in the group was mounting all this time and in November 2015 we held a preliminary meeting so everyone could find out a little more and vote on a name for the group!

We expected about 40 ladies to turn up at the preliminary meeting.....and were totally amazed when we welcome about 60 into the hall for an evening of natter and cakes! 

It was great to meet so many like-minded ladies.

Bake, Natter & Roll Preliminary Meeting - October 2015

On the night we voted to start the new WI group and also voted on the name.....

Bake, Natter & Roll (Farnham WI) was born!

Fast forward to the 21st January and a committee of seven ladies were waiting nervously to see how many people would actually turn up to the first meeting and would want to join us...but we shouldn't have worried....

Bake, Natter & Roll (Farnham WI) first meeting - January 2016

Over 70 ladies joined us for cake and speed crafting! 

But we will save that for another blog post.

We're a WI Group for the young and the young at heart.....our provisional programme for 2016 includes, among other things, an introduction to mindfulness, a talk on social media and a wine tasting evening....but don't worry there will be plenty of crafts, cakes and the odd bit of jam making too!

There will be cakes....

.....and some crafts!

The Committee is made up of:

Cat - President

Laura - Secretary

Miriam - Treasurer

Kate - Vice President

Lydia - Vice President

Rachel - Vice President

Judith - Membership Rep

Take a peek at what we all look like in the photos on the sidebar! If you see us at a meeting or in Farnham don't forget to say hi!

We hope you will follow us on our adventures on the blog....you can join us on Facebook and Twitter too! We'd love to hear from you, so please get in touch!

Thank you for popping by today,

the Bake, Natter & Roll Committee