The Great British Sewing Bee is coming to America

The Great British Sewing Bee has so far been very enjoyable.  When an episode is finished I feel all giddy and happy!
We've just seen the third episode tonight - I am not going to reveal anything other than the theme: STRETCH -  three projects using stretch fabric - leggings, a wrap dress and an upcycled tee shirt.
Episodes one and two seem to be available on You Tube (hopefully these links will work for you wherever you may be).  They are also available on Britain's BBC iPlayer, but the official website also has some clips to whet your appetite over here.
...Now for the big news for my American readers... They are going to make a series in New York!  I'd love to see a fellow blogger participate in this fun show, so please have a look at the websites and links, and do think about applying if you can!  I've tried to post the advertisement, but I am not as tech-savvy as I'd like to be, so here is a link to Carolyn's blog as she's popped all the information there.

Round of applause for excellent leggings!  source

Over here the contestants seem to get a Brief about the theme of the upcoming week and can prepare and practice the main garment for the second day of filming.  This week they prepared a knit wrap dress.  The sewing is filmed over a two-day period but first they have the whole week at home - probably practicing!  The first day of the sewing filming is always a pattern-to-follow challenge and an upcycle/alteration challenge.  Some family members may need to commit to being filmed too, but that is one of the nice parts about the show, seeing how sewing is a part of people's real lives.

A little more behind the scenes information:

The blog called The Thrifty Stitcher is written by the behind-the-scenes lady who comes up with the pattern challenges and helps with all sorts of sewing things on set.  Her blog posts are always written after the episodes air on TV so do beware, she may reveal details if you haven't already seen the episode.

Hope to see some of you on your own NY Sewing TV show!

The Great British Sewing Bee Season 2

Yay!  This fun-to-watch TV show is back on this year, starting on Feb 18th, BBC2 at 8pm.  This season we are going to have 8 episodes!
So far, I have tracked down two contestants in blogland that will be on the show, the first is Lynda (second from the left).  Her daughter Sarah writes a knitting blog and she mentions her Mum's new adventure in a post here.  It is a really lovely write up, Sarah's pride in her Mum just leaps off the screen!

Here are the GBSB contestants for season 2!  Does anybody recognise any of these contestants?
L-R:  Julie, Lynda, Heather, Cerina, Simon, Chinelo (who also has started a blog), David, Tamara and Jenni.
Best of luck everyone, and thank you so much for putting yourselves into the public spotlight for our enjoyment and for the promotion of all kinds of fabric creation!

Click here to see the promotional TV ad on You Tube.
My source for this photograph and other information is here.

Buzzing with News

 - NEWS FLASH - UK SEWISTS - 

They are already recruiting for a second series!!!!  Head over to this page to see what the application process involves!!!!  

Are you up for it?  

Phew!  That was an exciting News Flash!  

The Great British Sewing Bee TV program is airing tonight and it is the final episode.  With Sandra, Anne and Lauren all sewing a man's shirt for their pattern challenge, doing some hand sewn embellishment on a bag and finally creating an evening dress.  There is no prize, just the honour.

So, here are some links to the three lovely lady finalists:

Anne Rowley has been sharing lots of insights on the program here at artisanssquare, including the fact that the first two episodes were actually filmed consecutively over a 5 day period!!  No wonder they're so exhausted!  I am sure she will have a lot more interesting things to share with us after tonight's program.

Lauren Guthrie has been sharing her experience on her blog Guthrie & Ghani, and is very busy at the moment preparing to open her new haberdashery shop in Birmingham this weekend.  Apparently Sandra, Stuart, Tilly and Ann will all be there on Saturday's Grand Opening!  Wouldn't that be a lovely place to be!

Sandra Lavender doesn't have an online presence (that I can find) but is a very funny and entertaining lady and I wish her all the best in whatever she does with her life - a mother of three girls is a busy job all on it's own!

In case you are interested, there is also a website for Tilly, one of the other contestants, and the behind-the-scenes person who created all the sample garments and timed all the tasks also has a blog with insider's tips.  Her name is Claire-Louise Hardie and she writes a blog at The Thrifty Stitcher.

Personally, I don't mind who "wins" the show as they have all given a lot of their time, energy and reputation to become ambassadors for home sewing and to try and encourage more people to enjoy creating things with fabric.  In fact, all 8 of the contestants have done this, so I thank them for raising the profile of sewing - I am sure all forms of sewing and stitching will benefit from this program in some way.  It has been so much fun to watch sewing on the Telly and I have looked forward to each Tuesday night in ways that I have never looked forward to TV before - almost as if little parts of me were going to be on the screen - wierd.  I guess it's empathy and understanding.

Now here's something else interesting

The lovely people at Simplicity read my blog!!  Can you believe it?!  They wanted to know if I liked the little girl's dress in the opening credits, and if I would like a free copy of the pattern!  

How amazing is that!?  Unfortunately I don't know any little girls to make this for so I declined.....then they asked if I had any Simplicity patterns on my wish list.  Do I ever!!  So here is what they sent me:

 and 

Lovely aren't they?  Not in my size unfortunately - but maybe they'll exchange them for me? Can't hurt to ask right?

In fact, on the Simplicity UK website, they are featuring some of the patterns used in the Great British Sewing Bee program on their Home page - including Sandra and Lauren's jacket patterns.

Really looking forward to this evening's program, hope you all get a chance to see it too - USA readers seem to be getting it on You Tube which is nice.  And looks like they will be making a second series for us to all look forward to.

The Great British Sewing Bee

(Sorry to my overseas readers for another post based on the new upcoming T.V. program from the U.K.)
My book arrived in the post today, so I thought I would share a few photos of the end papers and the contents page.
(Not giving away too much, as I don't want to spoil it for you, if you were thinking of getting the book yourselves)

The contestants are photographed beautifully in the book, but they only appear on the back cover, the end papers, a montage page near the back and another double spread after the title page.  Apart from these, there are no further pictures from the T.V. program, and not a lot of content about the show itself.  There is no hint given about the results of the T.V. show at all, which is a good thing.  That way I'll enjoy watching everybody's progress.
Here is a link to the BBC contestant profiles.

The back of the dust cover

I hope you recognise the lovely Tilly from Tilly and the Buttons sewing blog.  I am so excited to see a sewing blogger in print!

One of the projects published in the book

Here are the montage photos of the contestants.  There are only a few, but beautifully photographed.

This one has a nice photo of Lauren, another sewing blogger from Guthrie & Ghani

To give you an idea of the kind of book this is, here is a photo of the contents page.

It has a whopping 28 projects included in the book!  

The pattern pieces for the first project - a Tunic dress - come with the book and are ready to be used.

For most of the other projects the pattern pieces can be downloaded and printed, or you can take the book to a photocopier and increase the pattern drawings by the stated % or if you are really clever you could scale up the drawings onto dressmaker's squared paper, as the pattern pieces are drawn onto graph paper in the book.

If you were thinking of getting the book, do feel free to ask me any questions before you purchase.

Disclaimer:  I purchased this book myself at retail price, and am not affiliated with either the T.V. show, the publishers or the authors in any way at all.  I took these photos of the book myself, and all original images belong to Quadrille Publishing.

The Great British Sewing Bee

We now have a day, date, time and channel in which to see this new BBC TV show!
Tuesday April 2nd, 8pm on BBC2.

I am so excited!

It only has 4 episodes, so two people are out of the show each episode, which is a shame.
There is a lovely article written in the Daily Mail about it, if you click here.  
To whet your appetite, here is a quote from the article by Patrick, one of the judges:

‘There are certain things in life that are inalienable facts: we need to eat and society dictates that we have to wear clothes every day,’ says Patrick. ‘Most people can manage some kind of cooking, but the fact that nobody knows how to make clothes is very sad.

‘Human beings naturally enjoy the process of making things. There’s a creative gene in all of us, whether it’s for baking or sewing or something else. When we’re children we make things all the time, but when we become adults we spend most of our time on a computer.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-2297051/After-Bake-Offs-success-The-Great-British-Sewing-Bee-revive-fortunes-traditional-craft-predict-shows-judges.html#ixzz2OLxPKvMF

Love Productions

And here are the contestants!

Presenters and contestants (L-R) Lauren Guthrie, Tilly Walnes, Jane Lake, Mark Sanders, Stuart Hillard, Patrick Grant, Claudia Winkleman, May Martin, Michelle Osbourne Matthiasson, Sandra Lavender, Anne Rowley

Here is a link to the contestant profiles on the BBC website.
The oldest contestant in the show is the amazing Anne Rowley, who is in her 80s!  What an amazing woman, and so kind to want to share her skills and love of stitching with all of us.  Her brother has said that the contestants have a contract that says they can't tell anything about the show at all, so I won't put any pressure on any of them to give us any tips or comments.
But what I will say is a BIG THANK YOU to them for opening up their lives and themselves.  I'm sure this will motivate more people to pick up a needle and hopefully to appreciate all the work that goes into their RTW garments.

That's my April Tuesday nights scheduled! (I DO hope it is good - the article says Claudia, the presenter was dancing about making them all feel a upbeat...urgh)

The Great British Sewing Bee

...I'd read a few hints... but now it's in print... The rumours are true!!!  

...but maybe you already knew about this?  
(I've always been a few steps behind when it comes to anything popular)

There is a new TV show supposed to be airing this month (April 2nd) on BBC2 over here in the UK.
It is a competition program made by the creators of "The Great British Bake Off" - which was a fun and inspiring program! (albeit about baking)
Here is a link to a recent blog post about the release date and the contestants.
Here is a link to some photos I took of the contestants that are printed inside the book.
Here is a link to a radio interview with the author of the book discussing the TV show with an author of a 1950s housewife book.  (The interview starts at 14:00 and goes for 6 minutes)
Here is the link to the Radio Times magazine article about it.
A BBC source told the Radio Times: "We had such success with The Great British Bake Off that we wanted to see just how creative Britain could be. We feel that sewing could become the new national pastime."
"The series will represent a version of the already successful series The Great British Bake Off and it will be broadcast in March-April 2013."

Amazon already has the tie-in book listed
(but not available for purchase yet)

Apparantly it will go for 4 weeks, with 8 contestants, and will show different skills like embroidery, tailoring, customising, quilting, accessories, etc.  And they're even doing a WWII Make do and Mend episode!

I am a bit surprised that they feel it will be a TV show that creates the "new national pastime" when really sewing has always been a hobby of so many people for a very long time.  If any technology is responsible for a new generation of stitchers then it would definitely be social media and blogland.
But it will be so much fun to watch people with real sewing skill take part in some of these challenges.  
We previously had a different TV show on that tried to "inspire the nation." It was hosted by a very talkative and likable lady so you would think it would be fab, but she had no skills herself and was always bumbling and struggling with every new skill introduced to her.

I CAN'T WAIT to see some skillful sewing on TV ...hmmm, I also wonder if anyone that we know/read and love here in blogland will be featured in the show?  Oh I do hope so!

Reality TV though?
I hope this will be as good as the Bake Off program.  These days so many competition-style reality programs are cruel and negative.  The Bake Off show was supportive and encouraging towards the contestants and the judges always wanted to share their skills and help the viewers and contestants to learn.  Certainly sounds like the online sewing community to me!