TELEVISION: The Great British Sewing Bee
May. 16th, 2020 02:48 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
feather_ghyllApparently it’s the sixth series of the show. After the BBC flagged it up as coming soon, but didn’t specify when 'soon' was, it was only by chance that I saw a bit of the Saturday repteat and knew to look for it on iPlayer. I don’t know if it would have made prime time BBC1 had circumstances not been such as they are.
Round 1
Some people have stuck better in my mind than others, and it’ll take more time with the names, but in my defence, there are more competitors than ever.
The theme was ‘everyday clothes. Although I thought Alex would be going, Angelila did seem to have failed to prepare properly for the show. There’s a transformation challenge every week! You may be more experienced in certain aspects e.g. working with a model, or sewing with certain materials, but it should be no surprises in the actual format.
Anyway, it was fun to watch the competitors grappling with choosing the right material, timing things and working under great pressure. Some people showed off strengths, and those coming in the top six or seven for the ranked rounds showed good all-round sewing skills. As ever, the judges were beady-eyed, Joe did not help a couple of people with his “help” and seemed to be in a less flamboyant outfit than last series, but made up for it by dressing up in whatever was lying around.
Round 2 – THEME: holiday clothes
I still haven’t associated all the names to all the faces, but we’re getting more of an idea of their strength and skills.
Pattern matching was a big issue all episode, and I liked a lot of the patterns chosen. The follow-the-instructions round involved palazzo pants and demanded precision, in addition to picking the right material, of course. For the transformation challenge, they were given colourful towels. While I liked the colour combinations, a lot of them didn’t look all that wearable. The winner (the same guy as last week – one of the three gay men with beards) came up with something rather stylish.
Last came tropical made-to-measure shirts, and Clare’s admission that she hasn’t made clothes for men worried me, as the show demands a certain level of versatility. (Of course I’m going to have a partiality for the vintage-favouring competitor.) But if you’re in the danger zone, Fiona, don’t change something you’ve already practised and timed if you don’t have to. I know it was the perfect pockets that won garment of the week, but HE’D PRACTISED THEM. He being another bearded chap.
Joe bouncing off the models seemed faker than usual, but he dressed to the theme this time and the quiet moment with Nicole after she’d got upset was sweet, even if obviously at the programme makers’ suggestion.
Round 3 – THEME: Children’s wear
The first appearance of bias binding and an informative piece about smocking and how it became associated with children’s wear now that we’ve got to know the competitors. (I’m still rubbish at that.) Joe spent the whole round playing on the word ‘smock’. Unexpected people went wrong, although the overall impression made by the dresses was that they were cute.
And then it all went topsy-turvy, with those who had done badly in the last round winning at the transformation challenge, and vice versa. The challenge was sleeping bag to food-themed fancy dress, and several of them were effective, and would have been even more so with time to find padding or sew on more bits. Esme not getting what some of them were was hilarious.
Then we had the dungarees made to measure challenge, and Patrick got into Fiona’s head over the contrast lining, I felt. She was already in the danger zone after last week and her limp watermelon. Hazel’s mistake with the pocket played on her mind, and we were reminded that not finishing is worse than getting your measurements wrong. But I thought many of the dungarees were cute, although some didn’t quite work with the age of the model.
Round 1
Some people have stuck better in my mind than others, and it’ll take more time with the names, but in my defence, there are more competitors than ever.
The theme was ‘everyday clothes. Although I thought Alex would be going, Angelila did seem to have failed to prepare properly for the show. There’s a transformation challenge every week! You may be more experienced in certain aspects e.g. working with a model, or sewing with certain materials, but it should be no surprises in the actual format.
Anyway, it was fun to watch the competitors grappling with choosing the right material, timing things and working under great pressure. Some people showed off strengths, and those coming in the top six or seven for the ranked rounds showed good all-round sewing skills. As ever, the judges were beady-eyed, Joe did not help a couple of people with his “help” and seemed to be in a less flamboyant outfit than last series, but made up for it by dressing up in whatever was lying around.
Round 2 – THEME: holiday clothes
I still haven’t associated all the names to all the faces, but we’re getting more of an idea of their strength and skills.
Pattern matching was a big issue all episode, and I liked a lot of the patterns chosen. The follow-the-instructions round involved palazzo pants and demanded precision, in addition to picking the right material, of course. For the transformation challenge, they were given colourful towels. While I liked the colour combinations, a lot of them didn’t look all that wearable. The winner (the same guy as last week – one of the three gay men with beards) came up with something rather stylish.
Last came tropical made-to-measure shirts, and Clare’s admission that she hasn’t made clothes for men worried me, as the show demands a certain level of versatility. (Of course I’m going to have a partiality for the vintage-favouring competitor.) But if you’re in the danger zone, Fiona, don’t change something you’ve already practised and timed if you don’t have to. I know it was the perfect pockets that won garment of the week, but HE’D PRACTISED THEM. He being another bearded chap.
Joe bouncing off the models seemed faker than usual, but he dressed to the theme this time and the quiet moment with Nicole after she’d got upset was sweet, even if obviously at the programme makers’ suggestion.
Round 3 – THEME: Children’s wear
The first appearance of bias binding and an informative piece about smocking and how it became associated with children’s wear now that we’ve got to know the competitors. (I’m still rubbish at that.) Joe spent the whole round playing on the word ‘smock’. Unexpected people went wrong, although the overall impression made by the dresses was that they were cute.
And then it all went topsy-turvy, with those who had done badly in the last round winning at the transformation challenge, and vice versa. The challenge was sleeping bag to food-themed fancy dress, and several of them were effective, and would have been even more so with time to find padding or sew on more bits. Esme not getting what some of them were was hilarious.
Then we had the dungarees made to measure challenge, and Patrick got into Fiona’s head over the contrast lining, I felt. She was already in the danger zone after last week and her limp watermelon. Hazel’s mistake with the pocket played on her mind, and we were reminded that not finishing is worse than getting your measurements wrong. But I thought many of the dungarees were cute, although some didn’t quite work with the age of the model.
