Sewing Bee is back

[Cocolapew]

Wednesday 24th May at 9pm 🥳

Oh, I was good at corners!

So good that I had corners where there weren't any, IYSWIM.

It's as though I was out on a walk with Jack Monroe, and had found a big bag of corners in a puddle, and wove them into my variegated-hole-and-knot extravaganza

I knitted a jumper for my dd when she was in Y1. She used to cry a bit when I put it on her because the neck hole was a tad snug. I also had to be careful she didn’t wear it on a PE day. She only wore it a couple of times.

I never tried knitting again which is a shame , my mum was a great knitter , she could do proper fairisle too.

🙂

The way you just cut out in straight lines using measurements is very like the way I make kimonos. Lots of graph paper involved and no actual pattern

I'm venturing into full size sewing for the first time since 'sewing' at school. The teacher hated me so shouted at me at every opportunity. I developed a hatred of sewing clothes. However I did make fabulous dolls (and bears) clothes for my children and still love making small soft toys / memory bears (reusing clothes which have sentimental meaning to people). Because I haven't sewn full size since 1982 I have just unpicked the seems of an old double duvet cover and will use the fabric to make the first version of the pattern. If it works I can get proper fabric, if it doesn't I've got plenty of spare for version 2 😁

Long time lurker here. I crochet & cutting up handmade blankets that took someone hours to make made me want to cry! I think Matthew would have had an easier time if his blanket hadn't been made from what looked like at least aran weight!

I thinkk that's why it was an unfair challenge. Few crocheted blankets end up in charity shops and most of those aren't suitable for cutting and making a garment. Making your own or buying one and pretending you got it in a charity shop means you can get the colours and weight and size you want.

So you can machine knit - is there an equivalent for crochet or is it always by hand? I can't crochet - my Mum could and created amazing things (she could also knit, which I can do but get bored before I can complete a pattern!)

I do wonder how much of each person is prompted by the producers - “so now you are leaving do you feel it’s important that your community was represented to children?”
or the person talks during the show and comments broadcast are about an issue. That’s true of all these programmes and nor just Matthew on this one. Not completely as the person picks the clothes they wear and style of garment sewn.

I’ll be interested to see if they move to a different sewer and any issue.

I agree. We hear what they say but we don't hear the question they were asked. It's all in the edit.

I don't know of any crochet machine and I doubt it would be possible currently. One big advantage of crochet over knitting is that you aren't circumscribed by the number of stitches you can fit on a needle so can do very big things like double blankets all in one. I recently took on a project to do something in the round where I ended up doing something like 900 stitches per round (never again) and you could never do that by knitting. You can do that because there is just one hook and you are hooking into stitches in the previous row, so that it is sort of freehand.

I guess there must be machines that can and do produce things that look like crochet, but I doubt there would be much of a market for home crochet. For me, much of the pleasure of crochet is just having something to do with my hands when I'm watching TV etc and then knowing that I have created something that is all my own work.

CabinetSauvignon yes the old style baby reins my DBs and I wore in the 50s & 60s were the first thing that came to mind when I saw Matthews crocheted thing. It looked so daft.

I do love the Sewing Bee, but last night has irrationally annoyed me… it’s not sustainable if all the garments you make are frigging hideous and no one will wear them! Those zero waste trousers were all awful, the tote bag tops was a stupid idea and as for ripping up perfectly good crochet blankets to make things with no use at all - surely that’s the complete opposite of sustainability. There were maybe two or three things that you could maybe see someone actually making use of, and the rest was all landfill fodder.

Poor Matthew, hoist by his own petard harness.

The Fold Line do a Sewing Bee blog and the zero waste trouser pattern that they have is much better looking, it has pleats and at least an attempt at shaping. There is also a skirt version of the pattern which is not so good. https://thefoldline.com/2023/06/15/great-british-sewing-bee-2023-sewing-patterns-s9-ep4/

This is a link to the pattern https://thefoldline.com/product/zw-block-pant-pdf/

I agree. I was quite disappointed with this week.

My late mother used to crochet blankets to donate and she used to insist that they were raffled or similar because just selling them wouldn't even get the cost of the yarn. One time she raised money by running a 'guess how long it took to make' and it was a single sized granny square blanket that took her over 130 hours.

If I had seen one of her blankets cut up like that, I would have been devastated.

The first skirt I ever made and which I often remake is no waste. It only works in a thin material though like silk or viscose. I used to buy silk in Liberty's sale as a student. I then sewed part way up the back of the skirt so no side seams, left about a 6 inch opening in the top that I finished with a small seam so flush with the cetral seam. I then overlapped the material round the waist, less bulky than gathering it with overlaps facing away from the centre. i tried to make it symmetrical, this bit is time consuming. Once happy (tack it first) add a waist band, add a large hook and bar to the back top usually overlapping the waistband slightly so no gap I often have a couple of bars for before and after dinner etc. Then a small hem. Looks much nicer than their trousers

I was reading that crochet cannot be done by machine which is why you really shouldn’t buy crochet clothes from fast fashion retailers for low prices. They will have been made by hand by a person in poor conditions and a very low wage.

And Asmaa wasn’t just wearing heels, she was wearing Louboutins!

Thank you - any chance of an explanatory diagram as i'm not very bright. 😁

I used to read the blog of an Australian sewer/sewist, Sue Stoney, who blogs as Fadanista - she's very keen on zero-waste patterns and often makes them. It looks as though these are the trousers they made last night.

There's a website if you look up the company she mentions; they say the pattern (such as it is) isn’t available at the moment but they’ll post it again soon.

I felt the trousers were so busy being clever they forgot to do the design. The patch pockets were only put on to make it zero waste and looked terrible. As did that side panel- would be a bit better with an contrast fabric but that would defeat the whole zero waste thing.

Yes, it would work better if some more thought were given to the actual shaping. I quite like this pinafore, which is low-waste rather than no-waste, but can be made out of old pairs of jeans. Quite ingenious really.

@Emotionalsupportviper are you really wanting a diagram? I could send you photos of a skirt made like this in a pm if you really want, if pms let me send pictures. I don't send many

If you are able to (don't know if PMs allow pictures). It's just I have difficulty picturing your garment but it sounds interesting.

The patch pockets were only put on to make it zero waste and looked terrible

I thought this, too