This review contains spoilers for the final of The Great British Sewing Bee. As the finalists of 2024’s Great British Sewing Bee readied themselves – stretching their needles? Flexing their thimbles? – for their last challenges, I summoned my last reserves of patience to sit through another hour of the nation’s politest show without driving tacking pins into my eyes. For although this 10th season of Sewing Bee has been by far its most stylish , the show is stilted by its inherently boring structure – three challenges per episode, two judges whittling down 12 amateurs to one, and very little room for invention.
This sort of television will never exceed just “nice” or “fine”. I understand that the series’ calmness and reliable sameness is part of its appeal – still, with nigh-on 100 episodes behind us, it is time to concede that the format has achieved all it ever could. But before I bring the guillotine down on Sewing Bee ’s lacy collar, there’s that final to attend to.
First, the contestants were asked to sew a pair of opera gloves. With a gusset threading between every finger and a minuscule seam allowance, the task proved enormously fiddly. Notoriously precise student Pascha was uncharacteristically foxed, delivering not only two left-handed gloves but one with its thumb sewn upside-down.
Glaswegian events planner Ailsa’s glamorous black pair looked great, but her lackadaisical approach to the seam allowance meant the model couldn’t get her fin.