Sewing Bee

[Cocolapew]

New thread for this weeks 🙂

I put Asmaa's first, Tony's second, Mia's third, and Vicki going home.

Agreed

Asmaa's in "sick" according to my teen.

Right decision

*is

Oh please, don't pretend that there is a similarity between Tony's and Vicki's made to measure. His is far better. It's not bloody close at all.

Both decisions were right.

Correct elimination. Surprised she lasted this long.

The right decision. Fair play to her though, she made it all the way to the semi-final.

I don't think there's ever been a series where it's been obvious from week one who the winner is going to be. It's been Asmaa from week one.

Asmara’s boiler suite was fab

Absolutely.

Asmaa's boiler suit was fab. She's really gained in confidence over the course of the programme in terms of her creativity and is now turning out some really interesting and imaginative stuff. She's going to have to really screw up next week to lose.

It was the right decision. BUT... Vicky had the hardest job, fit-wise, by far. Grading between sizes is very hard on a boiler suit.

Agree. I think all models should be a similar size. Most clothes hang better on slim models with slight curves. There's a place for models of all sizes but it's not in a dressmaking competition where they all should have the same scale of challenge

I think I read somewhere that the bees have a say in what shape/size model they have. It's probably easier to fit to a shape not dissimilar to your own (assuming you usually sew for yourself), so maybe that explains it to an extent.

But even if you're used to fitting a curvier shape, grading between several sizes will always be tricky.

I thought that. Her model was more of a challenge to fit.

I'm thinking that if Asmaa doesn't win it could only be due to such a random stroke of bad luck in the final that it would feel unfair.

Mia is very good though, so I guess I wouldn't be too cross if she won.

I love Tony, but I feel like he's been riding his luck for weeks - maybe my memory is playing tricks on me? I think I would actually think it was unfair if he won.

Asmaa's Audrey Hepburn pattern challenge and trenchcoat were both so good that I'd have been tempted to pick them as GOTW. Just exceptional skills.

I don’t know, Anne in the first series was, by the judging standards of that series, always clearly ahead of the others, although she’d probably struggle to get to the final in later series because of the bonkers transformation challenges. She was a classic excellent home tailor.

also I thought Clare was a clear favourite from the beginning, although I may have been biased because I love her style.

Clare got a very low key edit in the first few weeks probably to cover up
her superiority, though it was obvious that a contestant who was a highly driven overachiever, and also had been making loads and loads of tailored clothes for herself for years was always going to be very tough to beat.

I'd love to have seen Anne's face confronted with a "make a fetish outfit from a packet of rubber gloves" challenge. I think I'm an outlier on this thread for loving the madder transformation challenges.

I wonder if they will ever have another surgeon contestant again. They’ve all shared characteristics like the ability to work under high pressure to tight timelines, hyper focus to the task in hand, the planning and thinking things through to foresee all issues. Presume it’s the training and/or you need these abilities in order to be a surgeon.

I have been flamed on Facebook for saying I haven't really liked the transformation challenges this season. Apparently it is to show their creativity.... Sorry, I thought it was about sewing - pinning rubber gloves to a mannequin isn't sewing.... I'd rather see them do something creative with old t-shirts, jeans, shirts, tablecloths, fat quarters, silk scarves etc.... Why can't we see things to inspire us at home? I'm not going to make myself something from rubber gloves but I might chop up old clothes if I felt inspired.

I agree with you. The transformations have been a bit silly this season, and really not relatable to normal life.

It's very typical of these production companies to not trust the viewer or care for their wishes and what they want to see; and to be more concerned with what talking points they can generate on social media. Good, competent, relatable sewing week to week does not generate a Twitter stir. Same as happened with Bake Off. As soon as they saw the reaction to "Ice cream gate" (or whatever that incident was called when the guy through his bake into the bin because someone else removed his ice cream from the fridge), they were forever more looking for similar dramas, gifs etc. They began focusing on the bakers' personalities and trying to capture them pulling faces or displaying a particular type of behaviour to create gifs. And the challenges got more and more ridiculous in order to generate a disaster. Sewing Bee has not got as bad yet, but you can see how the transformation challenges are being used by the producers to generate talking points rather than to educate home sewers about how they can reuse existing materials to make something actually wearable. The challenge last night was about as close to tailoring as the party game, toilet paper bride.

Totally agree. The transformations just get sillier and sillier.