Which is why Tom is dressed as a marine life choking hazard.

This recap does not have a smiley face.

Am I Hungry?

It’s Texture Week on Tom Daley’s Island of Yarn Craft Hell, which is why he’s dressed like the middle aisle of an Aldi

at least kind of…? The first solo craft, which is stated to be an Amigurumi Challenge, has about as much to do with texture specifically as it does amigurumi

unless you’re Lydia in which case you will be highly criticised because your mashed potato has not been knitted in a way to suggest it has the texture of mashed maris piper potatoes specifically

SOMEONE has never had their mashed potato scooped onto a plate using an ice cream scoop and it shows!

I do think this is more the sort of challenge I’d hoped to see from the show – it was just pitched absurdly. And is also another largely crochet challenge in a competition where the prize is for Britain’s Best Knitter but at this point we just have to let that wash over us like an unfortunate dinosaur giving in to the abyss of a tar pit

My personal theory for this sudden invention of Very Serious Amigurumi (which I believe the Japanese just call “amimono”) is that they heard Di and Sheila trying to say “kawaii” one time and immediately killed the entire concept. They sound enough like a pair of disapproving catholic nuns contending with the rise of pop music as is, can you imagine if they’d had to confront Ailsa putting smiley faces on her carrots?

their big criticism for Ailsa was that everything was too neat and uniform. I NEED TO KNOW WHAT THE BRIEF LOOKED LIKE. Because I cannot stress enough how much nothing they wanted has anything to do with Amigurumi which is very simplified, cute little crochet or knitted dolls, usually with a smiley face on them. The only contestants to really excel at the realism side of things were Simon whose method of flying by the seat of his free-form crochet pants paid off really well when it came to his extra crozzly rashers of bacon

and Holger with his absurdly good bowl of ramen that features in about 80% of the promotional material of this show

the success of his seafood ramen only really served to hammer the nails into Tracy’s coffin of palm-sized farfalle for her own bowl of seafood pasta

the gamble on Di and Sheila knowing that Farfalloni is very much a thing didn’t pay off but her biggest mistake was deciding to do whole-shell mussels because it came with the expectation to fully crochet the iridescence into the design

someone hand me the knitted bottle of merlot, I need a drink.

Lastly we have Isaac who was making a Breakfast Everything Bagel that was split in two and could be reconnected into a whole piece using magnet

it was really well made and cleverly constructed, which the judges did praise him for before raining on his parade by questioning the verisimilitude of the bacon

LET THE BOY ENJOY HIS FLABBY BACON!

A Not At All Amigurumi Food Challenge Ranking:
1. Holger Ramening Away With The Trophy
2. Simon’s All You Can Eat Crochet Breakfast
3. Isaac’s Magnetic Attraction
4. Lydia’s Greasy Spoon Mash
5. Ailsa’s Sunday C-roast-chet
6. Tracy’s Bowl of Mess

Here We Cardigan

For their Team Challenge the show was exploring the definition of insanity after a challenge in which teams of three people struggled to make fully formed jumpers, they were going to see if Teams of 2 could make a slouchy highly textured cardigan

at least this time they weren’t having to contend with intarsia and they could knit with chunky wool and knitting needles built like brick shithouses – I’m sure Holger was thrilled

and if you thought the judging couldn’t get any more absurd than their mashed potato pedantry in the first round. OH BOY, are you in for a treat! After stressing that at this point in the competition they cannot afford any mistakes, Di and Sheila then go on to say this in their private Judges Chat with Tom

and it becomes palpably obvious that this is filmed after the entire episode (which they are in every show, that’s just how you make television but it’s usually not as as obvious as this) because Holger and Ailsa made the mistake of accidentally sewing half their cardigan inside out

and Di immediately begins trying to justify this as being fun and whimsical because it is extremely obvious that it was probably knitted by Holger and/or Ailsa given the style and quality of the stitching

not even Holger was buying any of this

I genuinely thought Lydia was going to, and I would’ve supported her decision to, murder Sheila when she got the measuring tape out to check for an apparent undisclosed metric of slouchiness in hers and Simon’s cardigan – WHICH SHE DIDN’T DO FOR ANYONE ELSE!

God forbid she believe that her entirely the right side out cardigan should’ve won this particular challenge

she and Simon were further picked up on the fact some of their eyelet stitching had pulled the main body of the cardigan creating a bit of bulbousness around the bum

personally I remain a bigger fan of the fat ass cardigan, that fits Simon perfectly

over the extremely obviously a mistake cardigan because who in their right mind owns a reversible garment that is only semi-reversed at any one given moment? I’m almost surprised that they didn’t start praising Tracy’s sleeves unravelling because she’d dropped every stitch as being a fun take on the concept of slouching and the ephemerality of fashion these days

it’s a shame too because the overall shape of Isaac and Tracy’s cardigan was probably the best of the three

sometimes fashion is the upper body proportions of the Honey Monster

however the judges also thought that the smiley face that Isaac had done on the back using a reverse stocking stitch wasn’t in keeping with the challenge as it was pictorial instead of textural

did you try wearing it inside out? Maybe it looked better?

An Official Slouchy Cardigan Ranking That I Am Taking No Blame For:
1. King Solomon’s Cardigan Solution
2. A Cardigan, A WHOLE CARDIGAN!?
3. This Is the Skin of The Honey Monster, Bella

Usually the episode is deeply frustrating but ultimately comes to the right conclusion – which, like Holger and Ailsa’s cardigan, half of it was right this week? Tracy was very much in last place and the dropped stitches alone warranted an elimination in a knitting competition

the winner though… based on the first challenge? Yeah, give it to Holger with Simon just missing out. But when you factor in the cardigans, I really think it should’ve been Simon getting the badge but instead Holger reigns supreme being the first to start a flock of sheep on his vest

I hope everyone’s ready for Lace Week which I’m sure will raise absolutely no discourse.