Oh for foot’s sake.

Hold on to your buttons, it’s going to be a bumpy ride.

Crochet Costumes

It’s Kids Weeks on Tom Daley’s Island of Misery and despite the experience of the Olympians last week, the show did not think it a bad idea to get a bunch of children in to wear fancy dress costumes hastily made in less than half the time needed

this show is going to make me start drinking.
Most the modelling is done by the mannequin – there’s little to no evidence the knitters ever even saw the kids wearing the costumes which is only shown as a powerpoint slideshow of knitwear catalogue snapshots that looks like an advert. It’s almost like a big wool company has perhaps a little too much creative control here…

every day I’m more convinced this show is somehow a money laundering scheme and one day I’ll wake up with a knitted horse’s head in my bed.

Kicking off Kids Week was the call for a totally unique, completely not ever been done before, unafraid to reference or not reference, put it in a blender, shit on it, vomit on it, eat it, give birth to it Kids Fancy Dress costume. Said costume had to consist of three parts – a hat, torso and accessory. And if you want to be Britain’s Next Top Knitter you’ll have to make the whole thing using crochet

that blood curdling howl of anguish you heard from over yonder hill and dale was the Ravelry forum popping every blood vessel all at once. It also brings me nicely to my new conspiracy theory – this show was definitely meant to originally be called “Game of Knits” as a play on “Game of Wits” but at some point they branched out to include crochet for the sake of the contestants / because Rowan told them to but they have to keep saying “Britain’s Best Knitter” because that’s what’s etched onto the novelty trophy they had made before the show began. And while calling someone who does crochet “a knitter” won’t seem like a big deal to the average joe, I can assure you, anyone dedicated enough to have an account on a craft forum quietly seethes about it every time. A crocheter is not a knitter. A knitter is not a crocheter. Everyone hates the macramists.

The other sign that crochet was not originally meant to be a part of the show is that Simon hadn’t so much as looked at the hobby prior to getting here and looks like he’s constantly trying not vomit every time someone mentions anything more complex than a granny square

between him and Dipti, the casting department is really killing it

I cannot stress enough how much your contestants probably shouldn’t be talking like they’ve been utterly defeated. She had played it very safe with her trip hazard of a crayon costume

as an attempt to show that she could do something a little more complicated, Dipti had decided to invoke the intarsia curse. Di & Sheila had some very helpful advice for her after inspecting her work in an uncomfortable silence that this show for some reason refuses to edit out

Dipti interpreted that comment as “oh God, my crochet lettering is entirely illegible” (it wasn’t that bad) so she decided to hastily outline the lettering – a manoeuvre that Lydia couldn’t help watching with the grim fascination of someone watching a montage of trampoline related incidents on You’ve Been Framed

and really Dipti probably shouldn’t have made the outlined strands as long as they are – I do cross-stitch, you think it won’t look *that* different and I promise you, it ALWAYS does, take the time to do small stitches

but they’ve barely got enough time to crochet the damn thing, they can’t factor in vague and terrible mid-project critiques.

Dipti wasn’t the only one being accused of going too simple because Simon had made a glorified granny square for his chainmail tabard

however, while Dipti had just made a toddler-sized tube, Simon’s knight costume was actually a really damn impressive build – particularly the helmet and perfectly swingable mace

the tunic is slightly more questionable, I don’t recall a Sir Tiberius Hobbleskirt being a part of the Round Table

it does at least buy you some time getting away from the mace wielding toddler who is out for blood.

Some of the yarn-based dabblers had gone for some more complicated stitches, however the show has not mastered explaining these to an audience and clearly wasn’t willing to splash out for a demonstrative animation so you get 10 seconds of just zooming gently in and out of this image

it’s the small things like this that make this show such a special disaster. I know as much about pottery, sewing and baking as I do about crochet and knitting yet I am never this confused when they explain what the contestants are doing on those shows.
The reason Isaac was going for such a time consuming technique was that he wanted his jacket to have a woven canvas look because he was making a little explorer

it’s really cute and possibly one of the neatest creations anyone has managed thus far, I do think there’s significantly less of it than everyone else but the intarsia globe on the back is genuinely impressive given the intarsia attempts thus far

I can actually tell that’s a globe and not a woolen petri dish of exotic disease! He’s also lucky he didn’t opt to make it a button-up jacket because he would’ve lost points for daring to use actual buttons – what do you this this is “Britain’s Next Best Button User” or something?

You cannot suddenly outlaw buttons, you’re already giving them half the time they should have, LET THEM HAVE 1 FREE THING!? Especially when only one (1) of them bothered to make crochet buttons. And of course it was Holger

his fox costume was very cute and looked like something straight out of The Little Prince or Where The Wild Things Are

Lydia was further beaten down for her lion not being original enough

I get that critique but they didn’t apply it to anyone else and we had a bee, a fox and your brother on a stag weekend

I truly don’t know what they actually wanted from them? If you want to create the infamous Sushi moment from Sewing Bee, you’ve gotta earn the privilege

Di Gilpin is essentially the Fake Ancient Statue in Animal Crossing to Esme’s authentic version

I have patiently and politely sat by as the show insists upon the affectation that she wears knitting needles in her hair but having her walk around looking like The Great Gazoo pushed me over the edge

And don’t get me started on Sheila’s dried eyed weeping because Keith does it over on Pottery Throwdown. It’s reheated nachos all the way down, Clint! You can all go sit in your knitted DashCon Ballpit and think about what you’ve done

you get 8 minutes and then it’s my turn.

Tracy’s Queen Bee got a very mixed reception with the judges being very impressed by her mix of textures on the body of the costume, which did look very smart

but the wings on the back which had been made using a hair curling band hadn’t quite worked out for her with them drooping quite a bit due to the weight

it is however a very cute costume.

Lastly we have Ailsa who was making a zebra costume, but specifically a zebra that had been cast in an all zebra production of Gem and the Holograms

I love and hate this. I love the jacket, I think it’s really nifty and it’s nice that it also just works as a piece of clothing. I just… the face… it reminds me one of those horrible Beanie Boos that are sold in petrol stations

and I personally think they’re terrifying and can’t be trusted. I’m a zoologically accurate plush puritan and I will not be silenced.

Wall Hangings

For the three-legged knitting race, the knitters were finally allowed to knit again as they embarked on wall hangings inspired by the Head, Body, Legs game

or, if you’re the team of 4, it’s the Head, Body, Pelvis, Legs Game with Dipti being the poor unfortunate soul that had to work out how to make a child-friendly interactive crotch for sensory play…

this entire team was on a one way trip to being on a list as Lydia sat there during the judging with the shellshocked expression of someone who has just stood 10 feet back and realised they’ve accidentally knitted a swastika

I love that this team broke the one fundamental rule of this game for 8 year olds by collaborating beforehand

and STILL ended up making Baby’s First Nazi Gimp Pirate

the unzippable mouth is a crime

however, the bigger issue for Di and Sheila who continue to choose the weirdest battles, was the attaching of the wall hanging to the wooden rod and it being “too visible”

and then they also got annoyed that Dipti’s panel was putting the crotch in a misspelling of crochet

this show is rich to complain about a Frankensteining of knitting and crochet resulting in a monster that bulges awkwardly and can barely keep itself together

the other team of three, consisting of Isaac, Ailsa and Tracy went much simpler, prioritising shapes and not having to ponder what their monster’s crotch should look like

Isaac’s idea to keep the background the same colour really came in clutch for them – the other’s team is an indecipherable nightmare. It was also handy that Ailsa knew exactly what she was doing, having made her own wall hanging before so she knew to garter stitch each panel to keep it from curling too much as well as sort of whip stitching being the optimal method of attaching it to the rod

The judges were charmed by the creature having a face that didn’t look like someone strapped to a bed screaming in pain – I still think it looks like a character from some sort of survival horror game

but they both saw the whole thing as too simple with it lacking surprises like a quickdraw speedo

but as far as the sensory stuff did go, Isaac’s patches of different knitting techniques and yarns was a very shrewd choice specifically for this show

and at least Ailsa’s feet were educational

Holger’s were just… touchable toe nails

what’s wrong little Timmy? You’ve hardly fondled the toe nails?

For having been such a good guiding force in his team’s creation of the wall hanging and the really good quality of his explorer’s vest, Isaac was very deserving winner of the episode

and over on the other team, finally released from her eternal torment of this godforsaken barn, Dipti was eliminated

you could see the weight lift off her the moment her name left Tom’s mouth, it’s… this show, man? It’s something.

And so, 6 go on to make Elphaba’s Sex Cardigan next week (this is barely a joke)