The Great British Sewing Bee's best quotes

She may be a 71-year-old grandmother with an eagle eye for pattern matching, but finalist Joyce’s weekly confessions of enjoying a drink or two had us reaching for the corkscrew…“I got two firsts and I'm going to have two Chardonnays” she merrily proclaimed after a double success in sixties week.

"It's gone wrong – in ways we couldn’t even have imagined it was possible to go wrong"

Series four’s most disastrous garment award has to go to Ghislane for her baby gro in week two. Patrick summarised: “It’s all just gone really badly wrong, in all sorts of ways we couldn’t even have imagined it was possible to go wrong. I think you have to just put this one to the back of your mind…. and the back of the wardrobe.”

"When they teach you pi at school you think 'I am NEVER going to use pi in my life'"

Retired teacher Tracey could always be trusted to lighten the mood in the sewing room. When the Bees tackled puzzling patterns in last week’s semi-final she announced, “I’m making a circle skirt… I need to use pi to work out the circumference. When they teach you pi at school you think “I am NEVER going to use pi in my life.., and now I’ve got to use pi.”

“I’m a changed woman today, I’m biddable…”

After going rogue with her binding in International week’s pattern matching challenge, Joyce thought better of open rebellion in the sewing room, returning the next day in a more malleable mood.

“I’m a changed woman today, I’m biddable…” she proclaims, to which Patrick responds wrily “I can’t imagine you ever being biddable.”

"That bow looks like a dog biscuit"

She’s a pattern matching pro who isn’t afraid to be honest, no matter how nervously the Bees are quaking with fear, and Children’s Week saw perhaps her best put downs. She wasn’t impressed with Rumana’s child’s cape – “Well, I’m sorry but I think that bow is really mean – looks like a dog biscuit,” but perhaps her most cutting comments were saved for Angeline’s mermaid alteration challenge, “they’ve certainly had a hack at this dress… (laughs) personally I don’t like this, and this, it’s almost like 'What else can we put on it? Let’s bung it on'.” Ouch!

“I’m just going out to get the pet goat"

Host Claudia is always on hand with a wry observation about the contestants’ creations. There are too many one-liners to mention here but we did especially enjoy her proclaiming, on seeing Rumana’s plans to turn a ski jacket into a child’s hot pink flamingo chevron coat, “That’s like a little Freddy Mercury Baby,” or the time she took a shine to Charlotte’s Heidi-style child’s cape: “I’m just going out to get the pet goat – bring him in to watch Doctor Who – that’s what that says. In a good way.”

"We’re playing sewing Top Trumps"

When the contestants grappled with dressing gowns and robes in week four, Tracey and Jade invented a new game of ‘who's got the hardest garment', with Tracey proclaiming, “But darts aren’t difficult, I think piping’s more difficult than darts. If we’re playing sewing Top Trumps, your piping trumps my darts.” This could take off! My binding trumps your button holes and so on…

The final of The Great British Sewing Bee is on Monday 4th July at 9:30pm on BBC2

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