Any hole is a goal!

The 3 rules of television: Don’t work with kids, don’t work with animals and don’t work with lace.

A Formal Statement

It’s Statement Week in Tom Daley’s Crafting Slaughterhouse

NO NOT LIKE THAT!

for their solo challenge the knitters and crocheters-by-gunpoint were having to make two pieces of Statement Jewellery consisting of a necklace and matching cuff. We were also told that they had to use some sort of innovative material but I’m not sure if the contestants were told that considering Isaac, Ailsa and Lydia all seemed to just be using yarn and beads? It came across as very much tacked onto the end in post because Holger had shown up with a ball of shredded binbags

and he went on to create a really quite incredible piece of Victorian-style mourning jewellery (this is the best shot of it they give you, it was TERRIBLY shot)

the cuff did however leave a little bit to be desired because Holger doesn’t believe you should be wearing two pieces of statement jewellery at the same time

Holger at some point seemed to forget that he’s not trying to please the tutors of the London School of Fashion

and instead he’s got to knit for the very specific tastes of Di Gilpin who was walking around this episode looking like a kiting accident

I do have to admire her bravery for wearing this scrap of errant beginner knitting for all the world to see while she critiques fine stitching and lacework of all things. You could see the knitters having to really concentrate on maintaining eye contact with her instead of having their eyes drift upwards whenever she spoke to them.

Isaac probably fell the most foul of Di’s particular tastes with his daisy chain set that she did not consider to be a statement as only someone dressed like your discarded yarn projects doing a flamenco could

burn me at the stake and call me a basic bitch but I like this! It does lean the most commercial and I think you could throw a stone at a craft fair and probably hit a lesbian with a sleeve of mushroom tattoos wearing this exact piece. (We at Ariadne Reviews Inc. do not condone throwing stones at craft fair lesbians.) There are things he probably could’ve done to make it a little more ~couture~ with a more winding and organic chain. But Di and Sheila don’t critique like that, they just tell you to throw everything else out – AND REPLACE IT WITH WHAT EXACTLY?

leaving Isaac standing there like someone who just realised their mum forgot to pick them up from school

someone please teach these women about the art of the compliment sandwich because at the moment they’re just serving up disparaging smørrebrøds. Compliment, *helpful* criticism, compliment It’s not that hard!

I was a little bit surprised that Di wasn’t more fond of Simon’s considering it looked like a piece of chicken wire a particularly crafty fox broke through

I have to admire his work with the wire, it looked painful and irritatingly fiddly. However, I’m not sure this is quite the right piece for that medium? I just can’t see how this would actually hang against someone’s body without them looking like they’re wearing a piece of posture correcting medical equipment? The shape just needs to be reworked a touch to make it look less like your top was strategically eaten away by white blood cells

and I hope Simon’s wife is up to date on her tetanus shots

my guy, I salute you for trying to justify that instead of allowing yourself to be punched in the face by Sheila’s open-faced critical sandwich. Braver than the troo-

oh. Ok, As brave as the troops.

The runaway winner of this particular challenge was Lydia, who was driving herself slowly insane with a 0.6mm needle that the camera couldn’t even focus on properly

it’s the sort of bonkers attention to refinement that gives a piece a very high end couture feel

I can see this actually being worn by someone like Jodie Turner-Smith, who might have to fight Di Gilpin for it

ma’am, can you not just be happy with your beach jetsam peineta?

Lastly we have Ailsa who was taking inspiration from Scotland for her Thistle necklace

once again, were they told to use innovative materials? Because this is just yarn. Was there a second page? Did some of the sewers not read both sides of the brief? That being said, there are some things to really like about Ailsa’s piece – the celtic knotting is certainly a statement and adds some much needed texture. I personally would’ve gone for a richer green to better contrast the purple of the thistle – speaking of which, I was a little disappointed she wasn’t making it more like a pom-pom? Either the thistle needs to be bigger or the knotted strands need to be be finer to create better contrast and a more readable shape.

Much like Holger, her bracelet was also a little bit of a throwaway piece that she’d added a crochet wire disc to in the last minutes but unfortunately only really makes it look even more like a TERF’s fitbit

You’ve only sent 734 of your 1000 daily insane tweets, Joanne!

Lace in the Hole

SOUND THE SIRENS! RING THE BELLS! For my friends, we actually have something vaguely akin to a Throwdown Challenge instead of The Apprentice making a group of people who have Bs in GCSE Business Studies create whatever this was

for this week the knitters are having a Lace Off with each of them responsible for creating a lace panel for Tom Daley’s Ugly Bespoke Light Fitting

and they would all be working from the same pattern! This is much more like what I had expected and wanted from the show. I mean it’s also *not* because just 10 hours to do a 66 count lace pattern even has the Harpies of Hell’s Seventh Circle thinking that’s a bit much. And at one point I think Lydia would’ve prefered to be turned into a thorny tree and pecked for all eternity by horrible bird-women (why does that sound so familiar?)

somewhere along the way Lydia had dropped a stitch – as someone who has only just started to ponder the complexities of knitting, crochet and forbidden macrame, I don’t even know how you’d correct that so I don’t blame her for needing to go and vent in the crying-cum-lace-steaming shed extension

where Tom could not go to console her because he’s dressed as environmental enrichment for a biblically accurate budgerigar and the last thing someone having a panic attack needs is for their own puffy-eyed face to be reflected back at them 100 times

it was here that Lydia revealed what might be the most cursed aspect of this show’s lore, which takes SOME beating, as they were filming this horrorshow on MOTHER’S DAY????

this show is unwell.

Simon was an absolute saint thought and while Lydia was off screaming at sheep to make the pain go away, he counted up her stitches to identify the problem for her

which did at least partially lead to him producing an unfinished panel that looked like it had been made by a spider on amphetamines

don’t do drugs, kids. OR COMPETITIVE KNITTING.

Simon was a bit on a backfooting having never done lacework before and Isaac was in the same holey boat. However, Isaac was a revelation in this challenge, finishing first and having a spectacular panel for a first timer

where most of the others really struggled was with that central column remaining straight with Holger and Ailsa both falling short in that regard

and even for all her heartache, in the end Lydia’s panel wasn’t that dissimilar from either of theirs

unfortunately for Simon this did put him directly in the firing line of elimination as his only hope really was for Isaac not to play the blinder he did or for someone to really flop but with Lydia pulling out of her lace-induced existential crisis, it was Simon who ended up going home

I’ll will miss the dynamic between him and Holger – if you can say one thing for Simon after this series it’s that he’s a wonderful team player and I’m glad that after his kindness to Lydia in the Lace Off, she went on to the get the Sheep Badge (even if maybe Isaac should’ve got it…)

but that necklace she made was really spectacular AND THEY MADE HER FILM THIS ON MOTHER’S DAY, YOU MONSTERS!

And so, it’s on to Sewing Bee Transformation Challenge Week!