I have caught up with all ten seasons of The Great British Sewing Bee over the last year, and, while it’s great fun, it does convey a somewhat distorted impression of sewing for fun, with an entirely artificial sense of urgency. After all, very few of us would deliberately set out to make a prom dress in five hours.
The exception, of course, is the “fancy dress costume for a child” transformation challenge; it is quite plausible that one might find oneself landed with the obligation to produce an outfit FOR TOMORROW and then cough up a quid for the privilege.
To be clear, this isn’t what happened here (apart from the charity donation bit). My child is not yet speaking and doesn’t know what fancy dress is. And I had rather more than ninety minutes warning. However, I did feel that turning:
- A yellow T-shirt which we already owned
- Waffley leggings which we already owned
- A red fluffy pompom, a pack of which has been sculling around my house since my husband sang Mister Mistoffelees at the 2022 Discworld Convention (don’t ask)
- A chiffon scarf, £1 from Oxfam
- A square of brown felt, £1.40 from the haberdashery department of our local toy/bike/model/DIY/craft shop
into an ice cream, over the course of three lunchtime naps, was very much in the Sewing Bee spirit.
This was a couple of months ago, and I shouldn’t think any of it will fit any more even if it were the weather for T-shirts, however bedecked they might be. But I did find a larger, yellow, frilly T-shirt in a charity shop today, so maybe it’s worth taking some care in disassembling the thing…
Kathleen Jowitt 