"Bee-ing" Creative - The Hope & Gloria Junior Sewing Bee Grand Final

A few months ago we began to promote our first ever inter-school, inter-county sewing competition.

The Hope & Gloria Junior Sewing Bee was borne out of a plan to give our amazingly talented sewing club members the opportunity to showcase their many sewing talents and gain recognition for them pretty much in the same way that sporting, drama, and dance etc is recognised in schools and clubs on a regular basis.

We had no idea whether we would get one entry or 200 but we decided to put it out there. I am so delighted we did. As you may have read on a previous post we were overwhelmed with the response to round one of the competition and once we had chosen our 30 finalists they had 4 weeks to prepare for the Grand Final.

This took place last Sunday afternoon in the fabulous venue of St George's School, Windsor Castle. The finalists had two challenges to complete - the first a technical one. They had to re-create a simple phonecase that I had designed for the occassion demonstrating their basic sewing skills. They had 30 minutes in which to make it. The second round; a "Showstopper" that they had designed by themselves at home in preparation for the final from a list of supplied materials.

Wow! They were incredible. I know from experience with our school clubs just how creative and talented children can be and they certainly proved that this is the case on the day. It was very hard to choose a winner - all of the children who took part should be extremely proud of themselves, the quality of ideas and sewing was amazing. However, three very deserving winners were chosen - First place - Ella, Second place - Julia, and third place Georgia.

The event could not have taken place without the support of my amazing team at Hope & Gloria. They were an integral part of the day - on hand to reassure and offer support to the finalists and without their hard work over the past year the children could not have got to this point.

I am delighted to say that The Hope & Gloria Junior Sewing Bee is set to become a regular fixture on the Hope & Gloria Calendar and I can't wait for next year.

Here are a few photos that tell the story of our brilliant afternoon.