Sewing Bee is coming back!

[NutellaEllaElla]

Wednesday 27th April, 9pm, BBC 1.

I'll be away for weeks 2&3 which is unfortunate.

I'm also not sure I can reliably tell the difference between Dracula's Castle and Millwall Supporter.

Millwall Supporter (Steve?) has glasses that make his eyes huge.

it used to be people who could sew a bit and improved, rather than people who are already amazing

The first series definitely wasn't all people who could sew a bit - Anne the winner had been sewing expertly for decades.

I liked a lot of the M2M dresses this week too - even the ones which were badly made showed promise. I think there's a clear pack at the top (although I couldn't name them!) and I think they might all be women this time. Cristian (Dracula) has the potential to improve enough though.

I can't find a useful picture of all the contestants with their name this year.

Self made Cheat Sheet of contestants

which will probably be unreadable on the New Improved Site.

That is brilliant!
I’ve saved it to my camera roll - takes me forever to remember who everyone is!
Thank you!

I was impressed that I remembered over half of them without googling 😂

I thought the contestants in the first 3 or so series were more accomplished than in later series. I haven't seen this one yet though.

My husband's family on his dad's side were all woollen weavers in Yorkshire and his great grandfather spent some time in a clothing factory in Leeds. My husband has done a lot of research into the mills and factories in the area. It's adding something a bit extra to the Sewing Bee for us this year.

I blame my husband for this (his first reaction to seeing what she was wearing), Brogan is now "Dutch Girl" in our house.

Just had to quote another post again. Sorry.

We were saying the same thing last night. He would have been an asset to the show for his personality alone. Shame he can't sew.

Thing is, I reckon he probably could sew under the right conditions. I started sewing in lock down but I am slow AF. I take an hour and a half to choose my bloody fabric. I get that they have a choice to make re accomplished sewists and compelling TV but I just don't see the harm in giving contestants more time. I don't want to see rushed, pathetic attempts... There is drama without the time squeeze like the damn machine chewing up fabric, attaching pieces upside down etc.

That Cheat Sheet is genius thank you.
I'm no sure I ever saw a difference in the two bespectacled gents. In fact, I m surprised there are two - and I watched the whole programme.

Brogan I'm afraid, is "Haribo woman" in our house.

I almost didn't watch because Sara P annoyed me so much in the Christmas specials. As others have remarked, she seemed a better host last night. Still missing Joe, though 😞😥

Thanks @SoupDragon , I have take a pic of it on my phone to refer to .

Catching up. Mitch is lovely, but had to go. Didn't think much of GOW.

I agree. It takes me ages to cut out my pattern and fabric.

I really loved the GOTW and the contrast of the black. I thought it looked really elegant. In fact, I’m considering making something similar.

I've caught up! I absolutely loved it, perhaps even more than usual and I didn't mind Sara either. I really liked Mitch, but agree he couldn't sew! Also really liked the Vet, Brogan, Chichi and the organza dress lady. Oh and the Ghana dress lady! Fabulous, really looking forward to the rest of the series!

Mitch panicked when his machine played up. I’ve been there, under pressure, too much going wrong, hands shaking, “why won’t this bloody machine work, arghhh! Rethread it, bollocks, still not right, change the needle..nope still not working, why is it sounding like a bag of hammers?”.
A five minute break would have done him the world of good.
I love the programme but liked the earlier series when the experts did tutorials.

I love the programme but liked the earlier series when the experts did tutorials

Oh yes, I'd forgotten they used to do that! That was good.

I think it would be good to have Week 1 as a week no one gets sent home.

I thought I'd missed it and went onto iPlayer to watch it, but found I was in time to watch it live which I was really pleased about.

I think it was the right person to go but he did seem like a nice guy. I haven't really got a feel for the personalities yet, except young, hyper woman and wound-tight vet. I can't decide which way the vet is going to go, either her need for perfection is going to stress her out or she'll loosen up and enjoy it.

Agree with this. It's nice to get to know them all a bit.

And why isn't there a technician to help with sewing machine issues? Those machines they use are immensely different from my basic model... I'd be sunk straight away.

I wasn't disappointed that Mitch went. His first 2 garments were awful and he seemed to get most of the camera attention but maybe that's because he went so they wanted to show him. GOTW should have gone to the African inspired dress but we didn't get to see much sewing detail so maybe the sewing was much better on the winner and some times the judges have seemed to give prizes and more points to anyone who has an interesting relative story/ uses a bold print rather than because the garment is good.

They did say the sewing on the GOTW was excellent. I think that probably pushed it over the finishing line. I liked the dress, but others were lovely too.

I've worked out that you can tell who's leaving in the early rounds by how much background information you get about them.

Yes, I thought Mitch would likely go to due his screen time.

I love wrap dresses. Does anyone else watch Sewing Bee and image sewing their own all their clothes from now on?