The Great British Sewing Bee – Season 3, Episode 2 Review

After what seemed (or should that be seamed?) like a long wait, the second episode of The Great British Sewing Bee aired last night. The theme of the week was children’s wear. Now we thought that most of the contestants would have done some-sort of children’s clothing before… After all, the projects a sewer gets roped into knows no bounds.

The first challenge was waistcoats; cute? Yes. Easy? Not so much.

The pattern supplied included 16 pieces, buttons and welt pockets. As the contestants struggled on, there was a debate growing on Twitter. Was this pattern too hard for the second episode? Quite a few people thought so, especially given the time constraints.

Other people however, were not so sympathetic to the contestant’s struggles. Many pointed out that if they are vying for the title best amateur sewing in Britain, they should be able to do welt pockets in a set time.

Personally, I think that this challenge was a little more complex than the challenges used this early on in previous series. However, that’s just my thoughts, what do you think of it?

As hard as this is to admit, I am this morning struggling to remember who made the stripy waistcoat… but I do remember the fabric, mainly because I was thinking ‘We have fabric like that!’

Ours is a wool fabric called Top Notch, which is good as I believe many of the contestants used wool for their creations.

The alterations challenge saw the contestants presented with two children’s garments; a dress and a t-shirt. While all the creations were great, Neil stole the show. I mean, through-out the sewing bee’s history we’ve seen dresses, and tops of various sorts… However I don’t think we’ve ever seen boxing gloves. Yes, you read that right. As part of his alterations challenge, Neil created some shorts and tiny, matching boxing gloves.

As time ticked on he told Claudia “I’m making some shorts and only have 15 minutes.” If any of the other contestants had said this, I think I would have sat there knowingly shaking my head at their fruitless optimism. Neil though is a man with a plan, and a super quick stitcher; we knew he had this. Within time, without breaking a sweat, the shorts with contrasting side panels was slid onto the manikin.

(If you fancy making your own boxing gloves we have some very similar yellow jersey.)

 

For the third challenge of the evening, the sewers had to create a fancy dress outfit for their child model. The room filled with contrasting squeals of excitement and moans of the impending doom. This challenge was all about 3d construction… but I think Amanda missed that memo as she created a flapper dress and hat. All of the creations looked fun to make, and the children really got into the spirit of modelling them. At any party though there is the risk of meeting someone in the same outfit, which is awkward enough. However as she went to display her costume, Matt’s model seemed to know that the other peacock in the room was wearing a slighter better version.

 

Next week is a 1950s theme, which we cannot wait for! If you’ve been inspired by last night’s episode, head over to our site as we have added to our range of fancy dress fabrics. Elsa dress, anyone?