Episode 8 of the Great British Sewing Bee was Movies Week! Perhaps to get us in the mood for the upcoming spooky season, many of the challenges were inspired by horror films. There was a Hitchcock themed pattern challenge, a cinema curtain transformation, and a horrifying made to measure..
Don’t read on if you haven’t watched Episode 8 yet
I love to follow along the episodes with weekly recaps and pattern suggestions, so don’t read on if you don’t want to see what happened in the last episode.
The pattern challenge
Esme and Patrick chose Tippi Hedren, of Hitchcock’s ‘The Birds’, as their style icon for the first challenge. The pattern was based on her iconic jacket, and would prove quite a technical sew.
Patrick warned the sewists to follow the instructions to the letter, as the construction was slightly unusual. There were underarm gussets, bias-cut collars and bagged-out linings. Kit won despite going slightly rogue with topstitching down the gusset, making it 6/8 pattern challenge wins!
The transformation
The sewists were given red velvet curtains and tassels to turn into a garment fit for a Hollywood after party. Some sewists were excited by having something closer to dressmaking fabric to work with, but others found the heavy material difficult to work with.
It was great to see five completely different outfits! Yasmin won this round, with her glamorous multi-pleated gown.
The made to measure
Esme and Patrick were looking for horror film costumes for this week’s made to measure. It was important the makes looked like a costume for a film, and not fancy dress. Some sewists fully embraced the theme – like Kit’s terrifying scarecrow and Orla’s nightmarish possessed doll. I thought the faces on both of the costumes were really well done and very unsettling! They jointly won garment of the week for their equally scary makes.
We finished the week saying goodbye to Gaynor. She’s made some lovely things over the series, but her horror outfit wasn’t quite horrifying enough to meet the brief.
If you missed this week, you can catch up on BBC iPlayer when it suits you!
What’s happening next week?
We’re now down to four sewists, so tune into BBC1 at 9pm on Tuesday 9th September for this year’s semi-final! (How are we there already…?)
Want to sew along with the Bee?
The Sewing Bee always inspires people to start creating their own wardrobe. Seeing the contestants experimenting with different fabrics and styles is a lovely way to think about how you might tackle your own projects.
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