Lewis picking up the turquoise trim is this blog’s equivalent of Arthur removing the sword from the stone.

How much could one packet of beads cost, Michael? Fifteen dollars?

Knickerbocker Glories

It’s Reduce, Reuse, Recycle Week in the Bee, which is also often known as The Fabricky Word Salad Bonanza and we’re starting off strong with recycling t-shirts into an F&F multi-pack of knickers. The specification being that they could use up to three t-shirts from the provided rack

it’s not quite Dan using thirteen sets of novelty pyjamas to make 1 mini dress, but three t-shirts into 3 pairs of knickers sounds like a questionable use of that much fabric but I appreciate the ethos! And most of the t-shirts did make for cute undies with everyone managing to avoid the sandtrap of the blotchy yellow t-shirt

Tim’s hatred for this challenge was evident the moment they revealed it was women’s knickers and he started sweating like me when the temperature gets above 20 degrees (when can we systemically cancel summer?)

whereas Rebecca had never been more locked in in her entire life as she ran over to a pink t-shirt she’d made eye contact with like a couple at the bar looking for a third on Leeds First Friday and she’d be damned if anyone got between it and herself

and it’s hard to believe that her bottom pair of knickers was ever a t-shirt to begin with

that fabric was born to be a set of knickers and I’m so glad that Rebecca could help it actualise its true self into a very well deserved third place having just squeaked Beth’s stripey set out of a podium position

the deciding factor being that Beth had some slight stretching in her elastics, which was a common problem for most of the sewers who were struggling with the vibes-based approach to the overlocker

at one point they had to have Patrick go over to give a little health and safety warning because the floor manager saw Lewis using it and started sweating like Tim having to perceive women’s underwear

and I have not stopped thinking about Lewis’s knickers since Tuesday evening (oooh, err!) This statement contrast gusset is truly my new Roman Empire, I will bring it up in every conversation I have from now on

an absolutely WILD aesthetic choice, my guy! It’s like something Gwyneth Paltrow sells on Goop to test the Ph levels of your perineum before advising you on how to neutralise it with organic seaweed and bottled Mongolian sunshine. They were slightly overstretched (the knickers not the… nevermind) and he was put in the bottom or it, but spared last place on account of Tim having made knickers for a fairground’s funhouse mirrors

there is not a single place on these knickers that isn’t stretched out of shape, it is genuinely almost admirable! I was surprised that Adele was also in the bottom three but she did have a hole in her gusset (dear Eliza, dear Eliza)

but for the most part, the actual sewing was great on her two unholey pairs of holiday knickers

a lot of the t-shirts were print fabrics which I think had a tendency to make quite a few of the knickers look quite a bit more like bikini bottoms than knickers – none moreso than Adele’s monopoly on Hawaiian shirts

and Heather’s

it’s not really an issue and they weren’t and shouldn’t have been critiqued for that. The only sewer who did get some pushback for their fabric choice was Anna for her choice of greens

I also think hers are the ones you can tell the most were probably once a t-shirt in a previous life – especially that middle pair. But while Esme has decided her least favourite colour this week is green (ok, Michelle Visage) Patrick was there to defend her

but like most of the other sewers there were some issues with her elastic meaning she found herself in the lower echelons of the judges’ ranking for the first time. Granted there was quite a step between her and Tim’s Blunderwear, Lewis’s Alkaline Gooch, Adele’s Gusset Hole and Angie’s Inside Out Mystery Pants

which again, Patrick was willing to at least somewhat defend up until the moment he could go and whisper about it with Esme in the corner during their ~conflab~

but the runaway winner was Emma and her vibrant set

the colour combos are all VERY good, so I’m glad someone took up Lewis on his peddling of the turquoise trim

we’re on the lower end of the countdown of him giving into the siren song of the turquoise bugle beads. There hasn’t been NEARLY enough haberdashery action! Although, as this episode later proves, sometimes you don’t need access to all the rickrack you could ever want to touch the divine, you simply need the intrusive thought that what women truly want is to dress like a diving bell going to a cocktail party

AND LEWIS IS CORRECT FOR THAT.

Lastly we have Minnie who managed to come in second just behind Emma for her sensible pants for the elderly woman on the go

there is something about those particular shades of blue that are just very Tena Lady – just put someone in their 50s doing leisurely ribbon gymnastics in soft focus and we’ve got an advert!

An Official Knicker Set Ranking:
1. A Penny For Some Turquoise Trim, M’dear?
2. Tenas Across The Board
3. Born To Knicker, Forced To T-shirt
4. Striped Down
5. Destination Bikini Bottom
6. Anna’s Single Moment of Vulnerability
7. Angie’s Inside Out Mystery Pants
8. Is That A Hole In Your Gusset Or Are You Just Happy To see Me?
9. Goop’s Perineum Litmus Test
10. Tim’s Blunderwear

Scrappy Doo and Scrappy Don’t

The Transformation Challenge is where Reduce, Reuse, Refry Week always shines and this year was no different! Patrick and Esme were sent off to a scrap dealer to buy materials with a result like when you try to do “a quick midweek shop” while making the rookie mistake of going while hungry and before you know it there’s three flavours of Pringles, a bag of M&Ms and whatever seasonal abomination Mr. Kipling has trussed a Battenburg up as this year in your basket

there is usually more emphasis on the scrap of it all but beyond Minnie’s washing line shibari and Emma’s tragedy of shuttlecocks most of it was just very ordinary fabric – although they were limited to just one bolt

and fabric waste is a very real issue but I do always look forward to the unconventional materials of Reduce, Reuse, Re-Seussical The Musical Week so I was a touch disappointed that we didn’t get to see Anna making an Edwardian dinner jacket out of the gubbins found in that one drawer only your dad knows how to open. Granted, the result would’ve been the same as she stormed to victory with her Cunty Pyramid Head Goes To Wimbledon dress

I don’t love the neck guard but beyond that this is rather terrific but she had stiff competition from Rebecca and her entry into the never-ending saga of Marge Simpson’s Chanel Suit

beyond having to turn a bolt of fabric and a pair of starcrossed shuttlecocks if you felt like it into a dress, the outfit also had to feature ~drama~ at the back which in many a situation resulted in slapping on a big bow and hoping Esme hadn’t forgotten that was MEANT to be her thing

before she started pointing guns at Lewis’s emotional support potato sack

at not a single point did Lewis have any control on what he was doing in this challenge and my favourite moment of the series so far is when he stands back and fully takes in that his fugue state has resulted in him creating a bassinet that’s about to run the 100m sprint in a high school sports day

it’s been a while since an outfit stumped Esme this badly and Patrick couldn’t even try to mime Tesco meal deal prawn nigiri at her this time!

and once again, despite having created an outfit for a turtle that needed to go to the funeral of Albert VII in 1622

Lewis was spared the bottom placement because Angie had learned not a single thing from last week and continues to churn out Diva, That Is Literally Just A Skirt™ skirts

I fear she may have not fully grasped the prompt

and I can only imagine that she had looked over at Lewis’s Hunchback of Not-a-Clue and Emma gluing shuttlecocks and a doormat to the back of hers and panicked so made do with a tassel

the pleats are actually very pretty and the skirt is nice but what they were looking for was big bows and to ponder who in the sewing room has named their boobs Right and Jeft

Emma spending maybe 15 minutes sewing a passable gilet and the rest of it cutting up a doormat and dressing a pair of shuttlecocks up as Romeo and Juliet for the sake of literal drama is a truly galaxy brained Sewing Bee moment

and I love that they knew they couldn’t put her in the top three for it lest everyone start interpreting the challenge definitions like they’re cryptic crossword clues so it was a perfectly respectable fourth place for Emma. The top three being Anna’s revisiting of the Challengers press tour, The Biggest Bow That Ate All The Other Bows and Heather’s bow with the fringed edges

that use of the fringe on the tails is really inspired and makes it feel that much more lux. The final bow on offer was Adele’s which didn’t get quite the same reception even if the concept of the twist front faux bow mimicking the real bow on the back is a neat idea

again, it’s maybe just too wearable for a challenge that’s designed to push you to make something a little bit more either alternative or suitable to wear while you lead a sermon for your sun worshipping death cult

truly the “pin and pray” method is your best friend in any Transformation Challenge.

Lastly we have Beth who continues to beg and scream for senpai to please notice her statement stitching efforts as she embellished the back of her garment with a star

and for the most part her outfit is fine – I wish there was a touch more movement in the back flaps (grim phrase) and I think the material is ultimately fighting the concept

but I do love those colours and there is something almost heraldic about the outfit – hers and Lewis’s Conestoga Wagon Lady could be going to the same funeral for a 17th century Archduke of Austria.

An Official Drama-backed Outfit Ranking:
1. Anna’s Transformation Chokehold
2. Bows? Where Exactly Will You Be Attaching Them To That Mangled Chanel Suit?
3. Heather’s Fringe With Benefits
4. Business At The Front, Am-dram At The Back
5. Sun’s Out, Cheeks Out
6. Beth’s Star Topped Phalanxes
7. Tim’s Heliocentric Deity
8. A Wearable But Not Too Insane Top
9. You Better Not Be Dressed As A Sexy Diving Bell When I Get Home
10. The 85% Chance That Skirt Is Angie’s

You Doth Protest Too Much

For their Made to Measure Challenge the sewers were having to make a statement with their outfits being designed to illustrate some sort of environmentally conscious messaging. Much like Angie deciding to make a circle skirt for the second transformation challenge in a row (diva, you did this to yourself) there was quite a few cases of people being perhaps a little too subtle

so while Heather stuck a 10 pack of charm bracelet sized fish to 3 metres of netting to clear the lowest bar for this challenge possible, Adele understood that nothing about Sewing Bee can ever be subtle so you better safety pin that piece of A4 to your chest to avoid a misunderstanding

and yet, despite being covered in the full spectrum of a nuclear family’s weekly rubbish and Mercutio from Emma’s all-shuttlecock production of Romeo and Juliet, it was not enough trash for Esme and Patrick

and I can only imagine that at that point Heather looked at the 10 beads she’d glued to what the show called a “neck cape” and realised this was perhaps a bit of a misfire

the base outfit is really elegant and the treatment of the fabric doesn’t entirely read on TV but it’s a beautiful sort of patchy blue

but while Patrick and Esme did really like the main outfit, the actual messaging of it got a little washed out to sea

Esme, that 10 pack of beads costs £12 each and she was having to buy a new herring net, you’ll take what you’re given!

you need a better net guy, Heather

I think we may have strayed a little too far from the light of just turning secondhand duvets into party dresses that people will 100% ask you why you’re wearing a duvet if you wear them outside the house. Speaking of which, here’s Emma’s jumpsuit made from a secondhand duvet that looks like Miss Frizzle is taking you on a trip to see the detrimental effects that The Great Pacific Garbage Patch is having on marine life

a significant portion of the trip is taken up by having to remove a six-pack ring from the intestinal tract of a loggerhead sea turtle. Which is at least marginally better than that time Miss Frizzle got the kids fertilised by salmon

IS THAT MESSY ENOUGH FOR YOU PATRICK?

there was quite a disconnect between what the judges wanted and how quite a few of the contestants understood the challenge because at the end of the day, they do still want to make wearable clothes, sometimes too wearable in the case of Lewis and his compostable linens

I was surprised that they let this Sad Beige Baby of a jumpsuit slide so easily but it was so well sewen that I also can’t begrudge them for it – it fits his model so well that I hope she gets to keep it!
Adele’s was the most “this is being worn to a protest march” because you can’t *really* go to anywhere else covered in the week’s recycling and whatever toys your daughter won’t notice are missing

and then of course there’s Tim’s that looks a bit like someone’s Halfling character in D&D just got hit by an enlarge spell

I really want to like this more than I actually do (and I won’t lie, partial to the peek-a-boo navel) but it just hangs together too awkwardly and ultimately looks a bit like something a local community college exhibits at Chelsea Flower Show as part of an outreach programme so that everyone can feel slightly better about the inherent classicism of the orchid growing community (am I starting beef?) Which… I guess is kind of what it’s meant to be so job well done? Save for the slight misfire of the “fabric vegetables”

there’s abstracted courgettes and then there’s my failed attempts at being even moderately good at origami but with only 5 hours to do it all in, I can forgive a conceptual tomato in favour of some hemming. And sadly Angie had neither a tomato nor a hem

which is so unfortunate because this could’ve been something really special if she had managed to get around to finishing even 70% of it – it’s a genuinely really lovely outfit! Which I guess means we have to address HemGate as Anna later gets Garment of the Week for her calico dress and 10,000 word essay about the invasiveness of Himalayan Balsam

and yes, there is no hem but I think with calico and the Olivia Rodrigo-esque grunge-lite aesthetic that Anna was leaning into, I think it was a valid choice. Or maybe “savvy” is a better word? I think the outfit gets away with it and if anything, could maybe have been more distressed to make the effect look more purposeful? The judging should’ve touched on it, either because I think not addressing it in some way has done Anna a disservice on the socials, especially because Patrick’s reaction to the outfit was so strong

because the dress is beautiful and her approach to the messaging with the similarity to calico being “invasive” to fashion in the 18th century was genuinely interesting

*Amber Butchart in The History Cave sharpening a crossbow bolt*
I also really liked Minnie’s approach to the challenge, choosing to sew it all by hand in a very repetitive fashion to evoke something of the mundane demandingness of a sweatshop worker’s labour

which didn’t go over entirely well with Patrick who is a Saville Row tailor and can’t think of anything more thrilling to do with his saturday evenings than popping on Classic FM and hand stitching a blazer

I adore this outfit – it’s very Blair Waldorf decides to make Easter her entire personality in Season 3 of Gossip Girl to in some way sabotage Dan Humphrey’s entire life. The sleeves were a little bit too long, although Minnie will fight Esme in the parking lot over that claim

She’ll show you whose arms are too long!

And then finally we have Beth and Rebecca who had turned the Made to Measure into a pair of Transformation Challenges From Days of Futures Past with Rebecca tackling abandoned Glasonbury tents

and Beth doing the Drag Race staple of turning a reusable shopping bag into something that makes you look like a background character in The Jetsons

this is so bloody good????? I would probably have given Beth Garment of the Week because I think her dress really exemplifies Reduce, Reuse, Renesmee Week whereas Anna’s, while very good and interesting, could probably be finagled into multiple different weeks if she so desired. Rebecca’s was also good, but moreso in a way that everyone was saying “this is good!… for something that was made out of a tent.”

I just enjoyed that it and Esme looked a bit like they were the multiple Spidermen meme

well, one of us is going to have to change!

An Unofficial Protest Outfit Ranking:
1. All That And A Bag For Life
2. The Top Was Hemmed….
3. Minnie’s Own Personal Sweatshop
4. Miss Frizzle’s Wild Swimming Adventures
5. Sad Beige Jumpsuited Baby
6. No Such Thing As Subtle-sea
7. Rebecca’s In-tents Situation
8. There’s Not That Many More Fish In The Sea, Esme
9. Old MacDonald Had A Farm He/They He/They Oh
10. It Needs Some (patch)Work

As I wrote not a moment ago, Garment of the Week was given to Anna

I think what a lot of people need to remember is that while Sewing Bee is a sewing competition, it is also very much a personal style competition and I don’t know if we’ll get a garment that better exemplifies Anna’s personal style than that dress.
And so we come to the elimination and really there was only one way it would go after the cold reception to the skirt in the Transformation Challenge and just how unfinished her patchwork dress was, so we say goodbye to Angie

I would have loved to see her going out on less of a rough challenge and I hope she remakes that dress for herself one day because it really would look lovely!

And so, next week we repent the sins of Bake Off’s foray into Mexico Week!