Great British Sewing Bee 2020 part 2

[GrandAltogetherSo]

Hope I haven’t jumped the gun, but the old thread was getting quite full.

I’ve just been browsing the
www.bigcommunitysew.co.uk/
and trying to work out what sewing machines they were using at home. I always do that when a magazine has a feature about one if the contestants.
I think Therese has the same Juki machine as I have and she’s also got the mini quilter too. Lucky lass.

Also, do you think that maybe either Therese or that slightly annoying bloke Peter might have won this year as they also have Juliet, the winner from the last series in this group?

I think Claire will win but Nicole’s garments are much more exciting.

@Egghead68

I think Claire will win but Nicole’s garments are much more exciting.

Exciting, possibly, but I'd rather wear Clare's.

Cerise wasn't really a colour of the 80s not in velvet anyway.

Am I wrong to think that Clare's stuff is generally a bit lacking in flamboyance and originality though (80s frock aside and even that wasn't really right)?

Flamboyant isn't really her thing.

Claire and Nicole are like Heather and Chinelo from the earlier season.

Everyone was up in arms that Heather won over Chinelo, as Chinelo was clearly streets ahead on things like drafting her own patterns and designing haut couture fashion.

But Heather won because it's the sewing bee not fashion design bee and her skills were ahead. Claire's just the same. Neat, precise, follows patterns to the letter but lacking the flair. Nicole has ALL of the flair and creativity, but lacks the technical precision.

Cerise wasn't really a colour of the 80s not in velvet anyway.

In 1984 I was 15. My favourite outfit that summer was a cerise skirt which I wore with a cerise and white striped T-shirt and cerise ballet pumps. My DF may have commented on my resemblance to a stick of Blackpool rock.

I also had a maroon velvet dress with gold spots and big white Lacey collar. It was truly a decade that taste forgot.

Cerise definitely was an 80s colour. I had a cerise top that had a fake black bow tie in it (with a diamanté centre!). I wore it with a black skirt. It was my party outfit.

I also had a cerise dressing gown and felt very grown up using the word “cerise”!

That said I wasn’t that fond of Clare’s this week. I agree with pp who said she should have used black rather than grey

I had some maroon velvet knickerbockers in the early 1980s, thankfully no photos exist

Clare's dress wasn't cerise was it? I didn't think it was bright enough for cerise.

I wish they'd put the previous series onto iPlayer.

Does anyone remember the year when one person was streets ahead with innovation and would clearly win. Early user of scuba. Then in the final she used a glue gun.

Reader, she lost.

Oh yes, that was Tamara who was in the same year as Heather and Chinelo. Patrick and May were hugely critical.

I take it back about cerise as I suddenly remember a friend's Laura Ashley cocktail dress with a puffball bottom in that colour (but it was taffeta). For all the 'in your face' colour that was out there it was also very much the era of the LBD.

She's one of the people I mentioned who basically threw it away in the final (And she's not on the "What are previous contestants doing now" page I looked at). I think Riccardo did too and another man (Jamie Kemp... was he in the army?)

Jilly Cooper books are always quite fun for the fashion - there's a lot of taffeta in the early ones.

Tamara had her own business for a while running sewing parties for kids.

Just found this thread and thought I'd throw my opinions in,

Terese's time to go, it annoys me she doesn't get things finished, when mostly they are fairly safe choices.

I love Matt, but he really really really needs to stop making the same huge mistake again and again. It's not a difficult thing to watch out for.

I thought Mark was a strong contender at the beginning, but the fact his name is barely mentioned on this thread for example obviously shows he's probably not anymore.

I think Liz is very sweet, but a bit too safe, I think she should stretch herself a bit more and take risks to get noticed.

Claire, I'm sorry, she's a wonderful sewer, but I find her clothes so boring. She could do so much more with her talents too.

I'm team Nicole. I think she has flair and confidence with colour and texture which shows she's willing to take risks, I thought her 80s dress was amazing, best garment of the series so far. I don't understand the mix-up about the sleeves, they seemed right to me?

Jade green and cerise, bright electric blue

I had one of those power jackets. Yellow with black lapels, pocket trims and button. I'm only a short arse so I probably looked like Ram Man from Masters of the Universe.

I don't understand the mix-up about the sleeves, they seemed right to me?

When they originally showed the drawing of what Nicole was going to do, it was going to be the blue sleeve on the white side of the dress and the white sleeve on the blue side of the dress.
She sewed it wrong and left it and it looked much better!

I think Claire is a fantastic sewer, I just find her a bit predictable, and I do prefer what Nicole does, she pushes herself with materials and trimmings, not always successful!

I had a cerise shirt which I wore with black trousers. I was seriously slim then too

When they originally showed the drawing of what Nicole was going to do, it was going to be the blue sleeve on the white side of the dress and the white sleeve on the blue side of the dress. She sewed it wrong and left it and it looked much better!

It was meant to be the way it turned out but she cut the sleeves in the wrong colours and simply sewed them onto the dress back to front.

Hence the black trousers with everything mantra that Trinny and Susannah were critical of😊

It was meant to be the way it turned out but she cut the sleeves in the wrong colours and simply sewed them onto the dress back to front

Ooops got the picture wrong in my head!

Agree Claire 's repertoire thus far is rather dull and safe. Classic does not necessarily have to mean boring. Was quite pleased to see her lighter side coming out in the reinvention challenge with the conical boob covering!

Im not sure Nicole does have a flair for texture. She's as predictable as Claire but in a different way as she always chooses the shiny fabric regardless of its appropriateness. She does "difficult" fabric for the sake of it every time. I don't see how that is adventurous. Giving everything a punk theme is also being boring and predictable.