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Sewing Bee
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The Great British Sewing Bee Series 6, which aired in 2020, returned with Joe Lycett as host alongside judges Esme Young and Patrick Grant, guiding another set of amateur sewists through a wide range of creative and technical challenges. From making shirtdresses and undergarments to upcycling household items and tackling intricate tailoring, the series tested versatility, precision, and imagination. The season was filled with memorable moments, inventive transformations, and plenty of laughs, all set against the backdrop of the first national lockdown which added a unique atmosphere to its broadcast. After weeks of sewing triumphs and tense judging, Clare Bradley was crowned the winner, impressing with her meticulous attention to detail, consistency, and stylish final creations.
How on earth is it Sewing Bee final week already?! My nine year old Son is already desperately trying to find a new excuse to stay up late on a Wednesday! Will the contestants blow us away? Just how tough will the challenges be? Let's find out.
Absolute precision was required to win the pattern challenge.
The Bees even had to reach for their calculators to work out the number of pleats required on the children's kilt.
Chuck in the ultimate pattern matching challenge, the need for neat and even pleats and neat sewing plus tough leather buckles. Wowzers what a challenge.
You can find our tartan fabrics here.
An opportunity for the Bees to really have some fun and show off their creativity plus watching Joe live his best life dressing up in all the props!
A transformation challenge I think I could actually get into, unlike the carnival outfits!
Claire sewed up a beautiful satin gown for her work colleague, you can find our satin fabrics here and here.
Nicole chose a dress I made! You can see the blog post here and find the pattern here. Plus Nicole also had to throw in a lot of trimmings, of course! You can see ours here.
Matt drafted his own dress including a leatherette bodice. I made a leatherette skirt last year, you can see it here and find the fabric here.
Well that's it for another year folks, we can't believe it flew by so quickly. Another lovely bunch of people and lots of sewing inspiration for us all.
This week the fabric was selected by the judges creating an even playing field for the contestants.
This week the fabric was selected by the judges creating an even playing field for the contestants.
Absolute precision was necessary to pull of the beautifully simple and elegant dress. Even pleats across the bust, an invisible zip, a bagged out lined bodice, the pressure was on!
Here are some gorgeous Marilyn worthy dress patterns:
And don't forget our fantastic dressmaking fabrics, find them all here.
You can also find our top tips for working with slippery fabrics here.
The Sewing Bees were invited to choose a random selection of items gathered from charity shops and junk yards and turn them into a futuristic piece of couture in 90 minutes. Yep it was all kinds of crazy!
For the made to measure challenge the Bees had to sew a flapper dress ensuring the simple silhouette hung perfectly on the model's frame whilst mastering an array of fancy fabrics and trimmings.
We have the perfect flapper dress pattern to sewalong with the Bees:
We also have some fantastic flapper worthy fabric:
Find our fun selection of trimmings here
World week and the Sewing Bees were challenged with sewing up a range of garments from, you guessed it, around the world. Fighting for a place in the semi finals the pressure was on!
The Sewing Bees had to create a Terno blouse with dramatic butterfly sleeves.
Fabric choice was absolutely key since it must have enough stability to hold the shape of the butterfly sleeve.
Sewing techniques included even gathers on the sleeves, a neckline binding and self covered buttons.
You can find a tutorial on sewing gathers here and the easy way to create your own bias binding here.
Find our self cover buttons and button tools here.
The Bees had to transform a tablecloth into a garment of their choice and the winner achieved an awful lot in the time allowed producing a very impressive garment indeed.
The Bees were tasked with sewing a flamenco inspired skirt for their models, which should hug at the hips and cascade into dramatic rows of ruffles.
This task certainly got my creative juices flowing and I was busily dreaming up a ruffly girly skirt of dreams. Luckily we have plenty of patterns that fit the bill beautifully and don't forget about our fab range of dressmaking fabrics, which you can find here too.
80s week for the Sewing Bees and I was transported back to my chidhood - Tears for Fears, images of Princess Di and some suitably garish garments!
The first foray into tailoring for this year's Sewing Bee contestants and it was a toughy - lapels, shoulder pads and princess seams - eat your heart out Joan Collins! Pressing was absolutely key and you can find our top tips to press like a pro here.
Find our suiting fabrics here and coating fabrics here. Find our shoulder pads here.
We have some super, some slightly less 80s, lady's power/tailored jacket patterns for you to try at home:
The Sewing Bees were tasked with transforming three high vis safety wear pieces into a party outfit.
The judges were looking for a graphic, geometric, Wham inspired get up fit for an 80s night club.
There was a lot of gathering and ruffling going on - read our top tips and see how to use a gathering foot here.
The final challenge was time for the Bees to shine, literally. The judges were looking for ostentatious bows, ruffles, lurex and full on drama.
80s inspired cocktail dress patterns are few and far between these days, but I managed to pick out a few which could work:
Well that was a fun trip down memory lane, looking forward to next week!
Reduce, reuse, recycle week not only encourages the Sewing Bees to push their creativity to the limit it also encourages us all to ponder sustainable sewing. As he revealed the lack of fabrics in the haberdashery this week, Joe reasssured the contestants there hadn't been a robbery - Esme patrols the studio at night with an Alsatian and a tazer!
The Sewing Bees had to choose four women's garments to whip up a man's bomber jacket.
Trying to find big enough fabric pieces to cut the men's pattern pieces from was quite the challenge.
The contestants also had to get to grips with sewing an open ended zip and sewing a layer of ribbing fabric between the facing and the neckline of the jacket, stretching it evenly as they sewed.
We have some fab man's bomber jacket patterns for you to try at home:
The Sewing Bees were allowed to choose items from the haberdashery, but no additional fabrics. In all honesty this challenge looked like my worst nightmare in sewing terms!
Patrick pointed out the prints and designs on those tough, waterproof bags were actually once used in a Celine collection making fashion history. The key difference being the designs were printed on beautiful, couture quality cloth not the stuff your granny used to take the washing to the laundrette in!
What a challenge for the Bees - cutting up old jumpers to create a dress. The efforts from the Bees were so good Patrick and Esme couldn't agree on a clear winner for garment of the week. Joe suggested an arm wrestle, but they declined!
Sleepwear and lingerie week saw the Sewing Bees tackle boned basques, granny nighties and sexy lace numbers.
Fit was absolutely crucial since a basque cannot be adjusted to fit unlike a corset.
With 13 small pattern pieces, hooks and eyes, boning and bias binding to tackle it was a desceptively difficult challenge.
Find our boning here, bias binding here and hook eyes here.
The Bees had to incorporate both a granny nightie and some grandad pyjamas into a stylish, wearable summer women's outfit, yes it was as tricky as it sounds!
Cehck out our top tips for sewing with slippery fabrics here and French seams here.
See our lingerie sewing patterns here and lace fabrics here.
Sportswear week is never my favourite week on the Sewing Bee, but Joe Lycett boxing Esme in a stupendously sparkly tracksuit immediately made me smile. Followed up by footage of a young Patrick Grant in his rugby years and, well, it didn't really matter what else happened in the rest of the episode!
The Bees had to sew jersey and woven fabrics together and master a tricky placket in herringbone tape for the first challenge.
You can find our top tips for sewing with knit and jersey fabrics here and overlocker tips for garment sewing here and here
Here's a couple of rugby shirt themed patterns, i.e. polo shirts, no rugby shirt patterns I'm afraid.
Fashioning a waterproof onesie from a rain jacket was a big challenge for the Bees. The mini mannequins never looked so jazzy!
It was such fun seeing some of the flambuoyant tennis costumes from the fashion archives. Some of the Sewing Bees opted for tradional pleated cotton poplin skirts whilst others went for a more modern lycra look.
Children's week on the Sewing Bee means teeny sewing tasks, which Joe likened to Esme - small but intimidating! How will the Bees fare with those mini sleeves and fancy decorative sewing techniques like smocking?
A perfectly balanced Peter Pan collar and pretty embroidered smocking were the key challenges for the Bees in the pattern challenge.
A super handy tool for neat, evenly spaced smocking is our Simflex sewing gauge, which can also be used for spacing buttonholes, pleats and anything else where precision is required.
Here are some super cute children's dresses if you fancy making the little people in your life a Sewing Bee themed treat.
Ever thought of refashioning a sleeping bag? Me neither! The Bees had to transform theirs into a children's food themed fancy dress costume. No you're not hallucinating!
If you'd rather use a pattern to create your little ones a costume check out our fancy dress costume patterns here:
Finally the Bees had to sew a pair of dungarees for a mini model. Unfortunately we don't appear to have any dungaree sewing patterns for children on the site I'm afraid, but there are plenty of other children's patterns to choose from here.
Week two was holiday themed and had me dreaming of escaping to a lovely beach. Seeing as that won't be happening any time soon we might as well hit our sewing machines instead and sewalong with the Bees.
Chic, cool and perfect for swanning around on your hols, especially in a bold, bright print. The Bees were asked to sew a perfect invisbilble zip, pattern match and sew seamless in seam pockets on a pair of palazzo pants.
Find out a super clever way to sew an invisible zip in our tutorial here.
Get our top tips for pattern matching here.
Here are our top picks for palazzo pants sewing patterns available on our site:
Sewing with towels felt like a tough challenge for week two. The Bees were allowed two towels and however much habby they liked, but no other fabric.
Finally the Sewing Bees had to sew a men's holiday shirt to fit their model perfectly. The judges were looking for symmetry at the neck and sleeves plus interesting details and design twists.
One of the contestants decided to sew pintucks to add an interesting little twist to their shirt. You can watch a video on our YouTube channel to show you how to sew them plus a Spanish hemstitch and ribbon stitches.
Whoop whoop the Great British Sewing Bee is back for a sixth series. With 12 contestants and more challenges than ever before it is set to be a corker and let's face it, we all need some light relief right now!
Such a great wardrobe classic and a great way to get off the starting blocks. The Bees had to sew darts, a waistband and a rouleau loop and fabric choice was key.
Find our top tips for picking the right fabric here (you can also see a video I made on the subject on our You Tube channel) and how to sew rouleau loops here.
Here are our top picks for wrap skirts available on our site:
This task would be my worst nightmare and I'm full of admiration of anyone who can do it well.
My lovely friend Ali produced a fab, fun A-line mini and I loved the corset produced by the biker from Middlesborough.
Finally the Sewing Bees had to sew a tea dress - initially popular in the 1940s the tea dress features a modest hemline and neckline, which was designed to be casual enough for day wear, but dressy enough for evening events.
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