The Great British Sewing Beecap, Series 4 Ep 5

Halfway through and it's 1960s week! To celebrate, the producers have replaced all the sewing machines with vintage models. Slower, more fiddly, and can only do two different stitches. This causes grief for everyone except Joyce, who was merrily sewing up miniskirts when these machines were new.

For the pattern challenge, everyone has to make a YSL-style colour blocked Mondrian shift dress. I've been arguing with myself about this since I saw a photo of the pattern in a review of the latest GBSB book; I would LOVE to make one of these but it will almost certainly look ridiculous on my disproportionately-shaped self. Neither side has yet won this internal debate. A fashion historian tells us that Yves St Laurent released a pattern for the Mondrian dress in the 60s, complete with sew-in labels. I wish more designers would do this. The Vogue designer collections of late have been pretty limited.

The judges talk about the need for accurate sewing of the panels and lapped zip, and EsMay even gets a touch terrifying again, though not enough to get her moniker back. Incidentally, this week EsMay is wearing what looks like a giant embellished sports jumper that's been through the wash a few too many times and then attacked by a shark, but I'm sure it's actually fashion and super impressive and I'm just uncool and rubbish. The accuracy will be enforced by Patrick and his ruler, or "grabbing his stick", as he puts it. This phrasing earns a snort from Charlotte, who gets Slapdash Points for openly sniggering at innuendo.

"They want precision? They'll get precision," says Joyce in a vaguely threatening way, and makes good on her word. Patrick's stick can't find a single thing wrong with Joyce's finished dress. She wins, followed by Charlotte's great use of colour blocking, Rumana's pastel concoction, Angeline's back-to-front panels, Jade's wonky monochrome, and finally Tracey's ugly-ass colour combination and badly-inserted zip with unacceptable contrast topstitching.

For the alterations challenge, everyone is shown an unusually hideous transparent PVC mac. Charlotte takes this mac off the mannequin rather than any of the other ones on the rack, because "if you're going to make something ridiculous, why not make it see-through?" I've not really had an opinion on Charlotte up til now, but she is winning me over this episode. Claudia stares at the leftover macs in sadness and disgust, as well she should. I'd love to know what Josh would have done with this thing.

In a nutshell, all the finished garments are varying degrees of hideous (and they play Je t'aime as the judges return, which I just can't stand. There's something about enunciated whispering that makes me want to drop-kick something). Angeline's polka dot dress with enormous front cut-out comes last, as the judges question its ability to stay on the wearer's boobs. I don't like the dress but I also don't think anyone has the right to be talking about the wearability of all this see-through shit. Next is Charlotte's see-through halter top and skirt, Jade's see-through crop top and skirt, Tracey's see-through shift dress with circles (spotting a theme?), and Rumana's one-shoulder red dress. Joyce wins again with a smock top that Patrick calls "nerdy sailor in neon pink". Joyce is going to celebrate her two wins with two Chardonnays, because Slapdash Favourite.

The final challenge, and everyone will be making jackets from 1960s vintage patterns. It's a complicated enough ask for them to be allowed to pre-cut their fabric, so we can assume they're expecting something pretty spectacular.

Angeline's main fabric is ORANGE in an effort to win me over, and she trims it all with paisley because she's trying to win over my boyfriend at the same time. He's not watching, Angeline, it's no good. She mentions her plans to add yellow and orange fur to the bottom, and Claudia starts retching. I'm with Claudia, as usual. The judges manage to persuade her away from the fur, mostly through looks of sheer horror.

Everyone compares bagging their jacket linings to giving birth, which is not the metaphor I would have used, but then I have had exactly no babies. Claudia acts as Charlotte's doula and sings Enya for her. "What are you going to call it??" exclaims Claudia with what seems like genuine delight and excitement as the garment is turned the right way out. Charlotte looks nonplussed and replies "...jacket," which does nothing to dampen Claudia's enthusiasm as she welcomes little Jacket into the world.

Tracey has made a tweed jacket with grown-on sleeves. Grown-on sleeves on a tailored jacket seems like a weird idea. It must be hard to fit them well enough to allow arm movement. EsMay likes the sleeves for their 60s quality, but there are a fair few nitpicks to be had in the construction. Tracey has made the jacket in tribute to her mum, and she is super-teary about it.

Patrick likes Charlotte's boxy Jackie Kennedy jacket more on the model than on the mannequin. Lots of good points but Charlotte and EsMay get into what passes for a fight on this show about the bottom edges not quite lining up at the front. Charlotte has made a matching hat out of a cereal box, which gains her yet more Slapdash points.

Rumana has made a red A-line coat, and has mostly done it well, except for the too-small lining pulling her hem out of shape and the buttons, which don't line up with the buttonholes. D'oh.

Patrick doesn't think Joyce's Elvis-inspired pea coat looks very 60s, and she is FURIOUS. She begrudgingly agrees with EsMay that there's a slight issue with her collar, though. Her furious flinching blink at the end of the judging is kind of hilarious.

Angeline's bright orange and paisley coat looks "soft and lumpy" because she hasn't interfaced the front. And because of her too-small lining her hem is INSANE, even by my standards. Angeline suggests that perhaps she should have kept the hem-fur after all.

EsMay and Patrick LOVE Jade's cropped tweed jacket. It's a much simpler pattern than the others but she has put time into the execution and her pattern-matching is impeccable, even across the buttons.

Jade wins, which I'm slightly annoyed about only because the other contender was apparently Joyce's Mondrian dress and I'd really like to see something from one of the other rounds win for a change. After a lot of deliberation, the judges opt to send Angeline home, the second surprise elimination of the series. But really, after coming last in the alteration challenge and producing that shitshow of a coat, there wasn't a lot of choice.

Next week: activewear! Meh.