That’s one way to win the show, I guess.

Get your Bavarian stocking cap on, we’ve got a recap to read.

Going Postal

Once again we start with the Team Challenge which, and it was bound to happen eventually, was a Yarn Bombing challenge with the knitters having to crochet (lol) a topper for the bespoke Game of Wool post box

the whole thing had to be themed around the Game of Wool Cinematic Universe with each of the knitters having to make either a mini Di, Sheila or Tom which honestly feels a little self-congratulatory. I personally think they should’ve been making a little version of each other. Ailsa drew the shorter of the straws in doing Sheila who doesn’t really have a gimmick whereas Tom is walking around like Booboo the Fool

and Di of course has the signature knitting needles in her hair

that are so signature that there’s not a single scrap of evidence of her wearing needles in her hair anywhere outside of this show.
Lydia was the one in charge of having to very carefully enunciate “Di Doll”

and had in turn done a fantastic job of crocheting Mrs. Goggins from Postman Pat

I’m obsessed with Di saying that the inclusion of the scrap of lace in her hair was “very perceptive”

babe, ain’t nobody missing the rolicking doughnut atop your noggin

it was at this point that I flicked over to BBC1 to see what was happening on “Doctor Whomst Amongst Us Could Resist The Sexy Fish?” to calm down and was only further infuriated

I just really need to talk about why the fish people are so suspiciously dry ALL THE TIME. Contestants on Glow Up have been sent home for less! You could’ve at least spritzed sexy fish Gugu Mbatha-Raw with a dewy setting spray! Also the way she looks less mobile in the water than Russell Tovey and she’s an aquatic creature is the funniest 10 seconds of TV I’ve seen all year

is this erotic for anyone?

ANYWAY. Back to Game of Wool! Ailsa was tackling the job of trying to make Sheila in anyway discernible from 70% of all Scottish nans. She decided the best and probably only way to do this was to reference the jumper she was currently wearing

that small scale intarsia work is really well done and she did a good job of pulling the doll out of the brief funk it spent looking like Mila from America’s Next Top Model during the side effects of smoking photoshoot

I’m SO MAD that Channel 4 made a big deal of adding ANTM to its programming this autumn and it being Cycle 16 onwards. BOO!

This left Holger with the Tom doll. I say “left”, he’d be damned if he didn’t get the opportunity to create this baby’s first spaghetti dinner of an outfit in miniature

and he did a really good job of it too, there were a few loose ends here and there but don’t worry that wouldn’t affect the distinctly premeditated outcome of this show.
This brings us to the collaborative part of the project and my absolute favourite moment of the entire series because I think it’s INCREDIBLY telling. So as well as Di, Sheila and Tom dolls they had to create some further set dressing to flesh out the Game of Wool world of it all. The knitters decided to make the sofa and decorate it with small nods to the eliminated knitters – we all remember how much Dipti loves rainbows, right? RIGHT?

and that’s really sweet and thoughtful because there is no Game of Wool without the contestants – they are The Show. However, Di and Sheila were mystified by the lack of sheep and trees

and I think that perfectly sums up the core issue with the show – it’s extremely caught up in this posturing aesthetic of heritage wool craft without actually caring about the human stories behind it all. Yes, the squirrel with the massive gonads is a Bake Off icon, but at no point has Paul Hollywood ever regarded it as more important than even the most forgettable of Bake Off contestants. Hello-Halo have tried to create a Love Productions programme without understanding what makes a Love Productions programme work. They’ve sort of just accidentally reanimated the shambling corpse of All That Glitters and they need to take care of it before it runs off to Geneva and does a murder spree.

Hat on a Hat

For their final challenge of the series, the finalists were having to make a hat that celebrates themselves as a knitter – the show finally remembering that that’s the point of this competition. I think everyone did a really good job of stepping up to the challenge too, we ended up with a trio of distinctly different hats. My personal favourite was Aisla’s – the pink and green houndstooth breton cap is just so absurdly cute

it’s like robin hood at a drag brunch really living up the Men in Tights fantasy.
She was the only one that was constructing their hat in panels and sewing it all together at the end and the judges spend more time criticising the pattern matching than the actual technical achievement of the hat

I said earlier that Sheila doesn’t have a signature gimmick, but I suppose she does have her critical open sandwiches. I can’t explain how much of an issue it is when a critique ends on a negative! Even Holger’s did and he bloody well wins (spoiler alert). Granted they spent A LOT of time gassing up Holger’s ability to decrease his stocking cap to such a fine point

and feel free to tell me that I must shut my no knitting knowledge mouth but isn’t decreasing just a basic aspect of knitting? Isn’t that *just* knitting? Granted, Holger had a very intricate pattern going on, having designed it to match the Not Actually Legally Fair Isle tank top he made in week 1 when everyone still had a sparkle of life in their eyes

and I’m sure that complicates things but Lydia had to work out how to knit Ghanaian symbols into a beret and got paid dust for that

I love the colours, which she hand dyed herself and they did at least praise that! I do think the pattern of Lydia’s beret got a little lost amongst the rest of it, but it might have just been washed on out TV and more vibrant in person. The bigger issue for her was that she’d made an error with her ribbing

but managed to rescue it by inserting a strip of elastic into it to ensure that the beret still fitted the mannequin head

although I don’t think anyone was getting a better fit than Ailsa, whose hat managed to survive this near death experience

Simon saving the day <3

An Unofficial Knitted Hat Ranking:
1. Robin Hood’s Drag Brunch
2. Holger’s Bavarian Bank Robber
3. Lydia’s Handy(ed) Beret

I think this final has been the most successful set of challenge all series – remember when they had to cover a couch?????? The post box topper was a nice whimsical challenge (tonally weird purely on the show’s behalf, for sure) and the hat challenge was actually achievable and encouraged a lot of creativity and diversity of approach. And before I get to celebrating the winner of the most disappointing trophy

I have a list of demands for the potential follow-up series:
1. Ditch one or both of the judges. They have the exact same point of view and you need at least one person who can celebrate the knitters more empathetically rather than technically.
2. Stop making Tom Daley say “Sheep Baaaaa-dge” – it’s bad.
3. More knitting challenges on your knitting show would be nice.
4. Change the format. Allow two days for the main challenge and have a fun mini-challenge between to ease the tension. The Pottery Throwdown format would be perfect.
5. No more team challenges, what the fuck were you thinking? KNITTING IS NOT A TEAM SPORT.

I realise I’m just creating Theseus’s Yarn Barn and maybe that’s a sign we take the whole show out behind the Shetland Knitting Society Social Club and shoot it in the head but I do believe there’s a good show in here somewhere and I just wish this group of knitters got that show instead of… Tom Daley’s Knitted Prison Experiment. You were all by far and away the best part of it all and I hope you feel like Dr. Rachel Andrew was doing a good job

and of course there does have to be a winner and I think there’s a strong argument for all three of them to be crowned, but it did go to Holger

his consistency across the entire series has honestly been legendary and I adore his style and I hope this is the new lease of life that he wanted the experience to be.