This is how I feel when the temperature gets above 20 degrees.

It’s a lovely morning in the village and you are a very drunk goose.

A Sequence of Sequins

Kicking of Children’s Week was the heavy duty challenge of having to create a sequined bomber jacket with nothing but their own feline reflexes to protect them from tiny scraps of projectile microplastics coming their way (and now we know how the turtles feel)

and Suzy was only adding to the health code violation pile-up by coming in superb Espathra, The Cunty Bob Pokemon, cosplay

I spent the entire episode waiting for the moment she’d find out she’d accidentally sewed her Muppet arms to her garment. Alas.

Naturally Suzy had gravitated to the pink which I thought spelled bad news for her considering the reception the last entirely pattern challenge creation received

however the rules of Esme’s relationship to colour are, like the birthing of a Great White Shark, completely unknown to science. I have a theory it may involve the summer solstice, what she had for breakfast and how much she wants you to make her a bespoke t-shirt macaroni necklace

although this was as far as the flattery went because Suzy still came 6th on account of her lining not being entirely sewn in. This was a problem that plagued most of the sewers who got a little bit lost during the brief period their bomber jackets had to spend looking like panicked sea cucumbers regurgitating their organs

a problem Ailsa never went through on account of the fact while everyone wailed in frustration at their child’s-arm-sized Chinese finger traps

she just didn’t do it like that having decided that Esme was putting them through a cryptic hokey cokey when you could simply be doing The Taylor Swift

and much Taylor Swift’s rampant overuse of a private jet, Ailsa got away with it as she took top spot with her lovely little white bomber jacket

joining her in podium position were Alex and Marcus, which wasn’t a surprise given they’d started the challenge with a tactical sequin war briefing

and their mannequins became a reboot of The Wonder Twins

Alex ended up with the more successful of the jackets, which you could kind of see coming because they kept cutting between Alex being relatively excited about the challenge

and Marcus looking around shiftily like he’d just booby trapped someone’s sewing machine

get your tinfoil hats and cork boards at the ready because I have a conspiracy theory

J’ACCUSE! IT WAS MARCUS IN THE SEWING ROOM WITH AN AUTOMATIC BUTTONHOLER!

On the other end of the spectrum was Luke, who everyone was putting a lot of pressure on on account of the fact they’re a working drag queen having ‘Nam-style war flashbacks

however while most of their delightfully trans pride coded bomber jacket (it feels a little bit transphobic that I don’t own for Pride Month) was really good

they became the casualty of The Great Unspecified Notch Disaster of 2024

for you see, there were a second pair of secret notches all along

I know it’s probably that Luke may not have read the instructions properly on account of everyone else (mostly) managing to create adequately successful collars, I still hate the whole “LOL, what do you mean you didn’t understand the purposefully vague instructions I, a clowder of Machiavellian cats in a child-sized trench coat, gave you?” thing

especially after Esme had taunted Luke enough

if Luke manages to win the series, I think part of the prize should be a 5 minute video chat with Cher or at least a personalised tweet

Nobody will ever be as accidentally good at social media as Cher.

Making up the middle of the pack were Pascha and Georgie, the latter of which ended up with a jacket that for some reason, to me, looked a little bit like the costume for the Emcee in an incredibly ill-advised junior school production of Cabaret

Patrick wasn’t a huge fan of the combination of the sequins and the ribbing, however Esme had rolled her percentile dice and scored above a 75 so she loved it

one day we’ll understand the enigma of Esme Young.

Pascha had gone for a very fun and vibrant pink and blue colour combination

and while most of it was quite good, she’d made a royal mess of parts of her lining and was further dinged on account of not endearing herself to anybody

Ma’am, the target audience of this show is women over 40 and queer people who had midlife crises at 25.

A Sequined Bomber Jacket Ranking:
1. Ailsa’s Bagged Out Detour
2. The United Sequin Front Vanguard
3. The United Sequin Front Battalion
4. Pascha’s Sparkly Gender Reveal Bomber
5. Georgie’s Emcee Jacket
6. That’s A Lot of Pink (tone indicator: Positive)
7. Crouching Collar, Hidden Notches

The Towel and the Pussycat

Of course with Children’s Week you can’t not have a slightly unhinged fancy dress Transformation Challenge. This year’s outing was asking the sewers to transform up to 2 beach towels into a child friendly animal like a dog, a butterfly or Bjork

The Bjork Swan Dress is absolutely one of Suzy’s 7 potential wedding dress options and I would implore her to go with it. There was however a problem for Suzy’s Whooper Bjork costume as there was only 1 white towel and she was not about to fight Ailsa for it

and all Suzy had managed to grab was a handful of leopard print but instead of accepting fate and begrudgingly churning out an adequate leopard, she was using the opposite side and covering it in every available white embellishment until it either looked like a swan or somebody had pranked an igloo

it’s actually a really good costume with the little swan feet booties adding the sort of small fun detail you only really get with homemade costumes. However it’s the face that looks like The Horrible Goose fell on hard times which really makes it

and it shall be joined in AAA (Alcoholic Animals Anonymous) by Marcus’s day drinking frog

which was a great multi-purpose costume being a good frog outfit but an even better recreation of Lisa Simpson’s Lizard Queen moment

Marcus was lucky because he nearly ended up in a Frog Off with Pascha

She let him have this one because his wife had taken a week off of being the target of his sewing ambitions and this one was being dedicated to the other love of his life, his pet frog

so instead Pascha, armed to the hilt with green towels, did the next best thing and started the never ending taxonomic game of “Is It A Crocodile or an Alligator?”

we’ll split the difference and call it a Broad-snouted Caiman. but wherever you fall in the crocodilian divide, I think we can all acknowledge that Pascha’s creation is one of the best things ever made on Sewing Bee

or at least The Best Thing Made On Sewing Bee Outside of the Christmas Specials because Sally Phillips’s Ironing Board Centaur That Definitely Wasn’t a Cheese Dream will always be treasured

the fact Pascha made such a perfect 3D head without a pattern and it didn’t end on the same animalian pub crawl that Marcus’s Frog and Suzy’s Bjork were enduring is extremely impressive

One of the most exciting parts of this challenge was the fact The Honorary Damien Wilton Haberdashery had official been opened for maximum chaos, much to Alex’s delight

and Damien’s legacy of the turquoise fringe that he used to throw at every garment he could lives on

the only time I have ever screamed louder than when I saw the blue fringe come out this week was when I was watching Instant Family in the cinema (awful film, truly terrible) and acclaimed character actress Margo Martindale unexpectedly appeared and I scared the 5 other people in the cinema. It was unnecessarily my best cinema experience of 2018.

Luke’s use of the blue fringe made slightly more sense than whenever Damien used it

(Neva4get) as it was being used to embellish their fish costume with a nice little watery detail – I do wish we got a better look at the back of it because it would’ve shown off the fishtail better

it’s such a cute little costume and the little chip bag adds a nice touch of whimsical irony that make for the best fancy dress costumes

Luke did end up only coming 5th which I think was slightly undersold (under-sole-d?) but as Esme and Patrick said, it was a really strong challenge.

Despite Georgie being the only contestant with children and presumably having been through the whole parental rigmarole of being told your child needs spider costume the day before their end of year production of Incy Wincy Spider, she still struggled the most with the challenge

having spent an incredibly long time MacGyvering a set of butterfly wing skeletons out of corset boning and pipe cleaners

sometimes even the greatest inventors have to accept that some things have to be left at the drawing board

Leonardo da Vinci came within an inch of inventing drag queens.

In the end, Georgie’s butterfly wings did look quite cute and suitably colourful

however the rest of the costume was lacking ever so slightly

and she got a little bit dinged for having no care for correct butterfly anatomy having put the antennae on the shoulders

Patrick Grant has never lost a game of Charades.

Georgie wasn’t the only one to use corsetry in whacky and wonderful ways. Alex used it to create my favourite animal, the elusive fourth member of the band Set It Off

this did cause a little bit of confusion amongst Patrick and Esme who eventually deduced that it must be a lion and not a Hanna Barber cartoon after having a gun backfire in their face

it took me *so long* to find an example of that trope where the set up and punchline wasn’t just “Lol, blackface” – the 1940s, who’d have thunk it?

Alex ended up with a very deserved second place, although I am going to need explicit proof that she didn’t just put her own vest on that mannequin and call it a day

she only narrowly beat Ailsa’s well accessorised and even more well aurally blessed dalmation

I imagine it caused Suzy a great deal of pain to watch as Ailsa glued black spots to the pristine white towel that would’ve been absolutely perfect for her swan

nothing can convince me this series of Sewing Bee isn’t just an elaborate psychological experiment and Suzy is the only lab rat. The Great British Stanford Prison Experiment, if you will.

An Animal Fancy Dress Costume Ranking:
1. The BBC’s Newest Gameshow “Crocodile or Alligator?” Hosted by Anton Du Beke For Some Reason
2. Alex’s Alt Rock Lion
3. Oh My Perdita! What Big Ears You’ve Got!
4. Suzy’s 5th Prototype Wedding Dress
5. Luke Serves Nothing But Fish
6. Don’t Drink and Leapfrog
7. Putting The “Butt” in “Butterfly”

MEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEMOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOORIES!

For their Made to Measure challenge the sewers were having to make an outfit for the members of a dadaist French improv troupe who were about to put you through the longest 2 hours of your life

said outfits had to be inspired by a childhood outfit of their own, or if you’re Marcus: somebody else entirely because your parents had terrible taste and you don’t mind roasting them on national television

truly a King of the people. Not all of us could have whimsical jumpsuits.

This brief did of course mean childhood photos galore, which not even Esme and Patrick were immune to. Unsurprisingly young Esme looked like she could drop the unexpected hit of the summer and become a global superstar over night

and Patrick… dressed like a house cat

and if we’re sharing childhood photos, here’s me serving America’s Next Top Model realness

me deciding to transition should not have been as big a surprise to my family as it was, like… GUYS

I have no idea why these photos exist but I will be using them as evidence that I invented the booty tooch – consider yourself sued, Tyra Banks.

It did end up being a challenge of predominantly jumpsuits and jumpsuit adjacency. Even though Georgie’s original outfit was a denim skirt she too had succumbed to The Bathroom Inconvenience

Patrick was particularly excited about the d-ring that dangled off the side, which immediately spelled Georgie’s doom as it had to get nixed because she spent an inordinate amount of time making the all important pocket for all your childhood necessities: a penny, a handful of sand, the worm you found on the pavement and the Starburst you’re saving for later

so she had to prioritise the important things, like making sure it was actually a jumpsuit and not a full body loincloth

so in the grand scheme of things, we should all be grateful that her kid was actually wearing a jumpsuit instead of looking like Tarzan doing a mechanical engineering apprenticeship at a garage – it was a close call

it’s a cute enough jumpsuit but it does just look a little bit under-designed and even more so when you’re up against Luke also making a denim jumpsuit with not 1, but 2 statement d-rings

I love this so much, it’s a perfect interpretation of the brief. Although that picture of santa and a penguin that Luke seems to be drawing does make me wish they were being inspired by their childhood art instead of whatever their parents had deigned to put them in

you can have that chaotic fancy dress challenge for free, Sewing Bee.

Speaking of fancy dress, both Ailsa and Marcus were drawing inspiration from costumes. Ailsa’s being an incredibly cute mermaid outfit her mother made her

and Marcus’s being a costume his uncle used to wear when he was part of an alternative Village People line-up

you’ve got: The Faked Death His Own Death For The Life Insurance, The Teddy Bear Doctor, The Astronaut and The Constantly Pissed Off Pirate

the source of Marcus’s inspiration being his uncle, the astronaut which is a shame because I would’ve loved to know who The US Tourism Board on the far left was actually meant to be. Although, Marcus said this was an astronaut, it was undoubtedly a Ghostbusters costume in disguise

it’s costumes within costumes as the only thing really selling the space theme was the patches that Marcus flung across the table like he was about to read your fortune

ah, the Apollo Shield Badge has landed face up, you’re going to be in the trenches of a great personal struggle soon…

I won’t lie, Marcus accidentally doing kink for 70% of the competition and then going out in Lingerie Week would be the kind of sublime irony that would make it easier to lose a fav.

The last of the Jumpsuit Brigade was Alex, who wasn’t actually making a jumpsuit but what are a pair of dungarees but a jumpsuit that gave up halfway through?

the slightly baffling thing about Alex’s jumpsuit is that it was made of velvet, a fabric ordinarily reserved for the Christmas dress your mother spends the whole evening worried you’re going to get gravy on. The velvet did look cute as a jumpsuit though

that deep purple-blue goes really well the lime green, it was just a shame that her top stitching did get slightly lost in the texture of the velvet

it could be quite a cool effect if it looked a little more purposeful and not like your only pen is giving up the ghost halfway through a lecture on the science of light in cinematography in which note taking is absolutely essential because your lecturer decided to do the lecture in the one room that doesn’t have a recording set up, GOD RICHARD WHY DID YOU DO THAT TO US?

Ailsa could easily have gone for a jumpsuit with her mermaid inspiration, however she’d decided to go for a big shiny dress for maximum whirling dervish princess impact

it’s really cute and perfect for the birthday girl that wants to upstage everyone but not actually telling everyone they’re coming to a semi-costume party. I do agree with Esme that the high-low hem wasn’t exaggerated enough to truly be successful

but I did like the idea of it being high-low to give the mermaid tail effect without being an incredibly inconvenient hobble skirt that threatened to send you face first into the snack table at any given moment. She had also suffered a bit of a casualty with the Great White Overlocker giving her mermaid a merhole

Marcus had plenty of spare space badges though, she could’ve just safety pinned one of them over it and said her kid was acclaimed merastronaut Swim Peak. (BOO! TOMATO! TOMATO! TOMATO!)

Pascha had also gone for a dress. Although hers wasn’t actually a dress, it was just a matching top and skort, similar to one she used to have that allowed her to cartwheel to her heart’s content

nowadays, a Pascha Cartwheel will cost you at least 3 Vodka Red Bulls

6 if she’s not wearing the cycling shorts. I’m choosing to spread malicious rumours about Pascha being banned from every club in Surrey for illicit cartwheels because I don’t think anything bad has ever happened to her. I mean, the biggest critique of her final outfit was that she’d made one superfluous but well made ruffle more than she actually needed which ultimately hadn’t impacted the quality of her garment at all

it’s incredibly cute but that broderie anglaise isn’t surviving a single minute of playtime. Although this is Pascha so it’s probably impervious to dirt and Pom-Bear residue.

Suzy is something of the Anti-Pascha. Not in terms of sewing talent but in generally how the universe decides to treat her. While Pascha churned out layers of lace and denim with the help of some obliging forest animals, Suzy Must Suffer™

God doesn’t pick favourites, but not everybody has this become their catchphrase

absolutely superb facepalm from her child model, who also did a remarkably good job at modeling this outfit that looks a bit like it could’ve placed mid-table in a Transformation Challenge involving tea cosies

Suzy usually does such big and bold things with ruffles and volume, I was excited to see how that would translate to children’s clothing that allows you to throw pockets and gubbins wherever the wind takes you. What we got was a vest and skort that looks like it’s slipping down. She was relying heavily on the patchwork element to sell the outfit but unfortunately in her galaxy brained life hack to make life easier by making the patchwork bigger, she’d forgotten that it was children’s week so the outfits got smaller

The Great Suzy Experiment trundles perilously onwards.

A Childhood Throwback Ranking:
1. Pascha’s Cartwheeling Safety Uniform
2. Luke Making Braces Even More Bi
3. The Velveteen Dungarees by Margery Williams
4. There’s A Hole In My Mermaid, Dear Ailsa, Dear Ailsa
5. Legally Distinct Ghost Catching Costume
6. Georgie’s Thankfully Whole Jumpsuit
7. Suzy’s Big Patchwork, Little Girl

Garment of the Week was mostly deciding which of Pascha’s garments to give it to: the tiered skort and top set or the incredibly charming alligator. They did end up going with the correct option of the alligator

I believe this is either only the third or fourth time a Transformation Challenge has won Garment of the Week. I should have a spreadsheet for easy clarification but I don’t because I am a fake fan.

As for the elimination, Luke had easily redeemed themself with their Made to Measure while Suzy, Marcus and Georgie really suffered. The three of them had a pretty even week and it could have gone any which way. I did think it may have been curtains for Suzy, but it was Georgie getting the chop

I’ll meet you by the specials board for that mid-afternoon beachside rave.

And so six get ready for sexy, sexy Lingerie Week: