The lovely Sara Pascoe is back to host series 11 of The Great British Sewing Bee. The series returns on Tuesday 15th July on BBC One and is set to be one of the best series yet, according to host Sara Pascoe: ‘It’s definitely my favourite [series], and definitely has the strongest sewers.’
After a hiatus for maternity leave, Sara Pascoe said she missed The Bee and was glad to return as host alongside judges Patrick Grant and Esme Young: “I’d really missed everyone and had awful FOMO (Fear Of Missing Out) not being there last year.”
The series will feature some of the strongest sewers yet. “Two years ago, I’d have thought, ‘Well, they just can’t top this.’ But somehow… there are so many people who are brilliant at sewing. I’m so glad they keep applying for the show,” Sara said. “It goes without saying, they need to be very good at sewing. If they’re not quite good enough or not quite experienced enough, then the competition isn’t very fun for them – but all 12 were brilliant.”
It looks like it’s going to be a competitive year! As the sewers get better and better with each series, the challenges seem to be getting tougher, too. “That’s what happens,” Sara said. “I guess they’re trying to come up with things viewers haven’t seen before. Also, some of our sewers have been watching the show since it started – they know what we’ve done – so the challenges have to be something they’re not expecting.”
With such a high level of competition this year, it was harder than ever for the judges to decide who should go home. “There were several times when they had to discuss it for ages because these are such tiny incremental differences between them,” she said.
There are also lots of exciting themes to expect in this series, including Korea Week, Movies Week and 1920s Week! Sara’s favourite week was Movies: “Oh, I loved Movies Week because we did a horror movie costume for the made-to-measure. I’d never been scared by clothes before, and there were two outfits that were genuinely creepy.”
There’s so much to look forward to in this series, and it’s packed full of funny moments. “Patrick and Esme had to dress up as a square and a triangle – that was pretty brilliant… Oh, and Patrick dressed as a lollipop man one week,” Sara shared. “We pushed the boat out a bit more with time calls and sketches – just being as silly as possible, really. It’s very tongue-in-cheek and fun.”
We’re so excited to see Sara Pascoe back for hosting duties, and we can’t wait to see all of the exciting creations across the series!
Watch the new series of The Great British Sewing Bee on Tuesday 15th July, 9pm, BBC One.
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