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feather_ghyllNow that the tennis is over, I can turn my attention to what I made of the final stretch of The Great British Sewing Bee.
QF/lesiurewear
I thought Tracy and Jade might be in trouble, which shows what I know. As the judges said, it’s been a rollercoaster.
Chucking new machines and horrible material at them was quite a challenge. We had grumpy contestants in the first round. Fortunately, the alterations challenge involved Claudia inevitably wearing the ski-suit no-one else wanted with aplomb and the contestants making children’s clothes, which are automatically cute and cheering. I didn’t love Jade’s jacket although I appreciated the technical things that the judges raised, and thought the clothes were nearly all adorable.
I have no knowledge of what a yoga outfit should be like, but it was rather obvious that Rumana was having the worst of it. What sh said about what sewing meant to her in her leaving speech was very touching.
I’ve always liked Jade’s personality, but I am delighted that she seems to be coming into her own at this point of the show, because she’s never going to have the experience of the others, but she’s taking care and being thoughtful about the challenges, and reaping the rewards.
SF/patterns
They opened with what seemed like a horrible pattern challenge, a zero-waste duvet challenge and a make-your-own-pattern made-to-measure challenge, which did indeed seem like a step up on the difficulty front.
In hindsight, I think the introduction of all four, their strengths and weaknesses, set it all up well, especially with scientific Charlotte who’s never won the garment of the week, but who really was the one to step up at this point. I was glad for her, because she’s been one of the more consistent sewers, and while the pattern suited her, she was also the one who helped the other contestants, got a breakthrough with the alteration (although I preferred the more wearable garments, I could intellectually appreciate what the judges were saying about the structure) and kept up the standard with her final dress. She deserved to rise to the top – but has she done so too soon?
It was quite close between the others, until Jade’s perniteckiness made her made-to-measure stand out. Good for her, I kept expecting her lack of experience to trip her up – it might yet. She’s likeable, and you think ‘oh if you’d waited a couple more years to try for this...’. I don’t know how minutely they went through the pros and cons of Joyce and Tracey’s sewing to make their decision about which of them should go.
Finale/evening-wear
As the judges said, it was tough to call, had I been going to, because all three had their strengths and weaknesses. The pattern challenge called for precision and one crucial guess/bit of reasoning, which Charlotte messed up, and we saw her shaking hands.
The gentleman’s suit into a little black dress was a genius transformational challenge, and I agreed wholeheredly with the judges’ ranking. Charlotte made a comeback, Joyce produced something a little frumpy, a little off, and Jade was a solid second. As everyone recognised, that left them all evenly matched, with the made-to-measure challenge surely being the decider, which was what I’d expected and why I saw no point in hazarding a guess as to the winner.
I’ll note at this point that I loathed Esme’s jacket.
As is traditional and fitting (sorry), the models were chosen by the contestants. I liked aspects of all three dresses as described and constructed, but when we came to the end, none was a wowzer. We saw the return of Charlotte’s shaking hands as a bump marred the flow of hers. There were several little things that weren’t quite right about Jade’s dress, although, again, some of that was inexperience. But how many sewers will have worked on trains? She’s done so well, and was the most thoroughly likeable contestant for me, but I always wondered, as she referenced something she’d done in her GCSEs, if she’d waited a couple of years to enter, gained some more experience, having done so well, she might have been a winner, instead of coming second. Because although I liked the overall look of Joyce’s dress, she got the skirt far more wrong than we thought she did while sewing it.
Based on what the judges had said – and I think it was the transformation that won it for her – I expected it to be Charlotte, and given her general consistency and talent, plus what had been framed at a breakthrough in the transformations, she deserved it. She was obviously in shock, and her tattoo was very clever.
I do like that they do a round-up of what the sewers have been up to since competing. This is such a nice show, overall, and the critique is always about the work.
QF/lesiurewear
I thought Tracy and Jade might be in trouble, which shows what I know. As the judges said, it’s been a rollercoaster.
Chucking new machines and horrible material at them was quite a challenge. We had grumpy contestants in the first round. Fortunately, the alterations challenge involved Claudia inevitably wearing the ski-suit no-one else wanted with aplomb and the contestants making children’s clothes, which are automatically cute and cheering. I didn’t love Jade’s jacket although I appreciated the technical things that the judges raised, and thought the clothes were nearly all adorable.
I have no knowledge of what a yoga outfit should be like, but it was rather obvious that Rumana was having the worst of it. What sh said about what sewing meant to her in her leaving speech was very touching.
I’ve always liked Jade’s personality, but I am delighted that she seems to be coming into her own at this point of the show, because she’s never going to have the experience of the others, but she’s taking care and being thoughtful about the challenges, and reaping the rewards.
SF/patterns
They opened with what seemed like a horrible pattern challenge, a zero-waste duvet challenge and a make-your-own-pattern made-to-measure challenge, which did indeed seem like a step up on the difficulty front.
In hindsight, I think the introduction of all four, their strengths and weaknesses, set it all up well, especially with scientific Charlotte who’s never won the garment of the week, but who really was the one to step up at this point. I was glad for her, because she’s been one of the more consistent sewers, and while the pattern suited her, she was also the one who helped the other contestants, got a breakthrough with the alteration (although I preferred the more wearable garments, I could intellectually appreciate what the judges were saying about the structure) and kept up the standard with her final dress. She deserved to rise to the top – but has she done so too soon?
It was quite close between the others, until Jade’s perniteckiness made her made-to-measure stand out. Good for her, I kept expecting her lack of experience to trip her up – it might yet. She’s likeable, and you think ‘oh if you’d waited a couple more years to try for this...’. I don’t know how minutely they went through the pros and cons of Joyce and Tracey’s sewing to make their decision about which of them should go.
Finale/evening-wear
As the judges said, it was tough to call, had I been going to, because all three had their strengths and weaknesses. The pattern challenge called for precision and one crucial guess/bit of reasoning, which Charlotte messed up, and we saw her shaking hands.
The gentleman’s suit into a little black dress was a genius transformational challenge, and I agreed wholeheredly with the judges’ ranking. Charlotte made a comeback, Joyce produced something a little frumpy, a little off, and Jade was a solid second. As everyone recognised, that left them all evenly matched, with the made-to-measure challenge surely being the decider, which was what I’d expected and why I saw no point in hazarding a guess as to the winner.
I’ll note at this point that I loathed Esme’s jacket.
As is traditional and fitting (sorry), the models were chosen by the contestants. I liked aspects of all three dresses as described and constructed, but when we came to the end, none was a wowzer. We saw the return of Charlotte’s shaking hands as a bump marred the flow of hers. There were several little things that weren’t quite right about Jade’s dress, although, again, some of that was inexperience. But how many sewers will have worked on trains? She’s done so well, and was the most thoroughly likeable contestant for me, but I always wondered, as she referenced something she’d done in her GCSEs, if she’d waited a couple of years to enter, gained some more experience, having done so well, she might have been a winner, instead of coming second. Because although I liked the overall look of Joyce’s dress, she got the skirt far more wrong than we thought she did while sewing it.
Based on what the judges had said – and I think it was the transformation that won it for her – I expected it to be Charlotte, and given her general consistency and talent, plus what had been framed at a breakthrough in the transformations, she deserved it. She was obviously in shock, and her tattoo was very clever.
I do like that they do a round-up of what the sewers have been up to since competing. This is such a nice show, overall, and the critique is always about the work.
