You give her 1 G&T..

Brace for puppet content.

He Gloves Me, He Gloves Me Not

For the final Pattern Challenge of the series, the finalists were given their trickiest piece of sewing yet: opera gloves, or as I call them Feathers McGraw’s 40 inch unit

as a non-sewer, the moment they said “gloves” I did think “that’s a bit easy” because if you’d asked me to make a pair, I’d have done the classic drag queen Christmas turkey arts and crafts project

however, these were gloves intended for the opera and not the low light of Manchester’s Centre Stage so they came with a miniscule seam allowance and “one long, continuous gusset”

which is indeed the only way to make the word “gusset” sound even more upsetting.

The sewers were also instructed to use a stretch fabric on the grounds that they hadn’t managed to procure a bunch of severed mannequin arms for the judging so the gloves would be worn by the very real glove model, Kit

who deserves a BAFTA, or at least an MBE – she and Charles can bond over not being able to get their fingers into gloves.

Both Ailsa and Luke went for stretch velvet fabrics, while Pascha immediately gravitated towards a lacey deathtrap as Dies Irae kicked into overdrive

and it didn’t take her long to rue the day she’d ever laid eyes on that bolt of lace

however, the fiddliness of the lace wasn’t even the biggest roadblock that Pascha would face in her accidental foray into crafting luxury Chinese fingertraps as The Suzification of Pascha began

in true Having-A-Nightmare style, Pascha was going to leave fixing the thumb until the end because she just needed to make sure that she had a pair of gloves by the end of the chal-

you either die the hero, or live long enough to become The New Suzy.

I will say, Pascha handled this comedy of errors like a champ, I’m not sure there are many other contestants who came into a final as a the seemingly obvious winner would’ve handled their chances being scuppered by these lacy sausage casings as well as she did

as was to be expected, Pascha didn’t end up with enough time to turn the thumb around so she had to whisper a few illicit operational instructions to Kit

and thus this very beautiful woman whose one job was to come on TV to look glamorous and sophisticated ended up with one of her hands looking like a curtain twitching lobster claw

but not only had Pascha invented opera mittens, she’d also created a sort of puppeteerable thumbs up marionette and what might be my favourite screenshot of the entire series

everything about this is perfect, and while Pascha’s gloves may not have been for everyone, she can rest safe in the knowledge that I could’ve made them work because my finger joints are what we call “unhinged”

if only the high school career test had told me I could aspire to the lofty heights of defective opera glove model.

The main story of the challenge was Pascha’s lace woes. However, she wasn’t the only one to end up with a few questionable digits as Ailsa’s gloves looked less like they were for attending the opera and more like they were for your Halloween drag performance as, unlikely queer icon, The Babadook doing I’m Coming Out by Diana Ross

and despite some of the fingers being long enough to get 5G signal

I will say, Kit managed to look less like the personification of grief and trauma than initially anticipated

and of course because they commented on the “well oriented thumb” we got this VERY RUDE smash cut to Pascha

LEAVE PASCHA AND HER UPSIDE DOWN THUMB ALONE, EDITORS.

Most of the challenge was of course dedicated to Pascha’s Adventures in Phalanges and Ailsa inventing a modern haberdashery polari

Luke got on with the challenge without much trouble, all they really had to contend with was opera glove gatekeeping

as someone with hands and fingers I would describe as “God’s first attempt at an aye-aye” I feel Luke’s pain

but perhaps I’ll have to commision a pair from Luke because their gloves were perfect (save for a couple of hand stitches to hide some holes)

I promise I’ll write every recap while wearing them.

An Official Opera Glove Ranking:
1. Luke’s Glamorous Drag Craft Activities
2. Ailsa’s Babadook Realness
3. Pascha’s Lacey Sausage Casings

Paper View

For their final Transformation Challenge in this nebulously themed Grand Final, the sewers (who I have just found out people call “sewists” for obvious heteronomic reasons) had to create party outfits from anything Paperchase wasn’t able to shift before it passed into the cute stationary afterlife

the trickiest part of which would prove to be trying not to get caught in the gubbins like a dolphin in a tuna net

the judges also stressed that said party outfits had to be wearable quite a bit

which did make me think they were going to wheel Kit out again as some sort of strange and unusual punishment. Sadly not, she was too busy trying to grease her way out of Ailsa’s creepy little monster gloves.

As most of the materials were paper, the sewers had to be very careful

which makes the fact Luke managed to insert a zip into napkins of all things like Jesus turning water into wine positively miraculous

but for every miracle worker, there’s a little gremlin in the wings waiting to betray you

it is insane to me that they gave them all paper and then penalised Luke because ESME(!) tore it because she was too rough with the zip that was perfectly insert into, AND I CANNOT STRESS THIS ENOUGH, napkins! Because their Pagliacci with a BBL outfit was undeniably the most ambitious

you cannot convince me this didn’t come first. Instead, Esme melted like butter the moment Pascha’s disco sensory toga was wheeled in front of her

I need to know what sewing sin that hail mary of a blue rosette is hiding.

Lastly we have Ailsa, whose entire approach to this challenge was Pride being the one place you can probably guarantee that someone will look like toilet paper in a windstorm

so in that regard, her 50 Shades of Grey bunting bondage in which Christian Grey is a circus clown called Peg-liacci makes perfect sense (big night for commedia dell’arte references on the blog)

the safe word is *honk* *honk*.

However, she’d neglected to remember that one has to be able to get in and out of the circus clown bondage situation

and thus she *distorted circus music*’d her way into third place.

An Official Paper Outfit Ranking:
1. Pascha’s CoComelon Toga
2. Pagliacci’s All Stars Glow Up
3. Erotic Circus Fanfiction

Going Drape Shit

Seeing out the series was a call for dramatic evening wear in their Final drape-themed Made to Measure Challenge – a theme that proved very confusing to the majority of non-sewers who had expected Grecian-style draping. The technical term of draping simply refers to the creation of a garment straight onto a dress form without a premade pattern

and if you tried to use the “ThAT’s NoT drAPeD!” argument to discredit the winner as the thinnest veil over your blatant queerphobia – congratulations you’ve somehow made it through 10 series of a show about sewing unique bespoke outfits and still haven’t realised this show isn’t for you!

As ever, the usual Sewing Bee models had been released back into the wild to migrate back to the Joe Brown catalogue for the summer and replaced with friends that either owed the sewers a favour or wanted to wield one degree of separation from Cher like a greatsword to climb the social ladder of the Manchester queer scene

Jake may have only been on the show for 20 minutes but I’m prepared to write a 3000 word dissertation on how they could’ve been crowned the winner of Sewing Bee 2024

charisma at an 11.

As well as Jake, Pascha was sewing for her friend Romy who may or may not be a Neil-designed ventriloquist dummy for the storyline producers

careful Romy, Pascha has access to a life-sized voodoo doll of you and she’s not afraid to use it

and while Pascha and Romy became trapped in their very own Goosebumps episode, Ailsa was designing for Thomas, a fellow member of the least threatening gang in Glasgow

gang activities include: guerilla crocheting, bespoke tea blending and underground spoken word poetry battles.

As with every finale in the Nice People Doing Hobbies oeuvre, there wasn’t exactly enough time for any of them to fully complete the complicated and highly demanding challenge. However, it was hardly The Infamous Wedding Cake finale of Bake Off

it’s not fun when everyone ends the series looking at their grand finale creations like they’ve accidentally polymorphed someone into an amphibious blob begging for the sweet relief of death

so nobody managed to fully complete their outfits to the degree they had envisioned. That being said, all three outfits were very much wearable, depending on how carefully you’re willing to walk

once again, we’ve got another outfit that is very much of The Barbie Summer of 2023 – however, the further we get away from The Margot Robbiessaince, the more an entirely pink outfit reads as The Hostess of a Breast Cancer Awareness Charity Gala In the World of Gossip Girl

this is very Serena van der Woodsen in 2011 coded and Romy did look absolutely incredible in it

the amount of leg may have been something of a mistake but it’s kind of a slay and I think makes the dress look a lot more contemporary than the initial plan

A happy accident as Bob Ross would call it.

Much like Pascha, Luke also didn’t get to fully complete the skirt of their outfit, which was meant to be a sort of masc-femme explosion of tulle and a suit akin to Michael Urie’s camp Met Gala look

Luke didn’t end up getting all the tulle layers attached to the skirt because they’d had to concentrate on the more important draped suit blazer, which was definitely the right call because the skirt still worked even if it wasn’t quite as dramatic as initially planned

but I think it looks a lot more chic with the simpler skirt – the blazer also looks like a really nice, subtle nod to the famous backwards suit Celine Dion wore to the 1999 Oscars

and I could absolutely see Celine wearing Luke’s outfit nowadays – it toes that fine line of genuine glam and Noted Kook™ that she’s very good at leaning into. It also helped that Jake was an excellent model and lived every gays’ dream of strutting in a pair of 8 inch boots to a Loreen song

it was at this moment that I realised Luke was definitely winning.

However, Ailsa wasn’t going down without a fight, leaning into her Scottish heritage with an outfit using her granddad’s MacLeod of Harris Ancient tartan

to create what I believe to be the hottest outfit to have ever been created on Sewing Bee

it’s difficult to explain *why* it’s sexy but it just… is. It’s a vibe that both Ailsa and Thomas pulled off perfectly. The front draped black… bib(?) didn’t quite work, it’s just a bit of an odd roadkill of a shape

but the back out of the outfit is the sort of tremendous high glam that feels like Alan Cumming wears on the American version of The Traitors

I really loved this outfit and think it was definitely the perfect final flourish for Ailsa’s Sewing Bee journey. In fact, I think that was the case for all three of the finalists and the other sewers, which I think is what’s made this series of Sewing Bee feel so satisfying. Nobody ever bowed out on a complete disaster of an outfit, it was often just a case of them meeting the natural end point of their sewing abilities. That being said, I could’ve done with at least 1 more episode of Neil just to meet Fiddlesticks, the cat puppet

Neil’s Instagram is the sweet dream and beautiful nightmare that the great sage Beyonce spoke of.

An Unofficial Draped Outfit Ranking:
1. Luke’s Masc/Femininomenon
2. Ailsa’s Sexy Vibey Tartan
3. Serena van der Woodsen at the 47th Annual Manhattan Breast Cancer Awareness Charity Gala. Shenanigans ensue.

And that’s it! Everyone did all they could and it was probably the closest finale we’ve ever had. To the point where they could’ve shrugged and declared the winner as the friends we made along the way and made all three of them awkwardly hold the trophy. However, there was 1 winner and it was of course Luke

I’m absolutely delighted for them – I’ve loved their point of view and style since the very first episode and think they’ve shown themself to be tremendously talented. So well done them!

And of course, both Pascha and Ailsa were very worthy runners up

I’m willing to pitch an Ailsa and Luke road trip around the UK designing outfits for queer performers. And Pascha can have a 30 minute sewing advice slot on Radio 4.

And before, we get to the Alternative Montage, I want to say a massive thank you to everyone who’s been reading the blog – it’s been a bumper year for the recaps and I’ve absolutely loved doing them! It was about this time last year that I’d had to take a long old mental health hiatus, so this year’s write ups have been something of a testament to my recovery. And if you’ve been reading them and would like to throw a little tip my way, I do have a Ko-fi set up HERE. As ever, it really helps to keep the blog running!

And so, MONTAGE TIME!

and that’s it for Sewing Bee’s 10 series! Long may they continue in gussetry, buttonhole horrors and allowing nice men a safe space to discover kink.