Sports Week put technical fabrics, comfortable clothing and plenty of clever sewing to the test, from men's swimming shorts and windsurf sails to personalised bowling shirts.
It also gave us a very good excuse to look through our activewear shelves, so we've pulled together performance fabrics, soft French terries, modal knits, sewing patterns and a few ideas for adding your own finishing touches.
Pattern Challenge: Men's Swimming Shorts
The first challenge looked fairly innocent: a pair of men's swimming shorts. Naturally, this being the Sewing Bee, they were considerably more involved than simply sewing two legs together and heading for the nearest pool.
The pattern included mesh lining, mesh pocket bags, a drawstring and elastic around the legs, so the sewers had to work accurately with lightweight, slippery fabrics and keep the elastic evenly distributed. Heather came out on top with a neatly finished olive green pair.
It was a useful reminder that sportswear often asks rather a lot from its fabric. It needs to move comfortably, recover well, cope with repeated wear and still behave itself under the sewing machine. Not always the easiest combination.
Activewear Beyond the Swimming Pool
You don't have to be sewing actual swimwear to borrow a few ideas from Sports Week. Stretch performance fabrics are useful for leggings, fitted tops, yoga wear, dancewear, gym clothes and all those garments that need to move with you rather than against you.
Our Yoga Knit and Kiki fabrics fit very nicely into that category. Their high stretch makes them particularly useful for close-fitting activewear where comfort and recovery matter, whether you're making leggings for an actual yoga class or just something very comfortable for Sunday morning.
Sportswear Doesn't Have to Mean Lycra
Sports Week also got us thinking about the clothes worn before, after and occasionally instead of the exercise. There is a reason joggers, sweatshirts and soft pull-on trousers have earned permanent places in our wardrobes.
French terry is one of our favourite choices for this sort of sewing. It is a knitted fabric with a smooth face and soft looped reverse, giving you comfort without the full bulk of a heavy sweatshirt fleece. It works beautifully for joggers, hoodies, sweatshirts, relaxed dresses, children's clothes and everyday layers.
Modal French Terry: The Softer Side of Sportswear
Our modal French terries take that comfortable sportswear idea in a softer direction. Modal gives the cloth a fluid handle and lovely drape, so it feels less bulky than a traditional sweatshirt fabric while still having enough substance for relaxed trousers, lounge sets, sweatshirts and easy layering pieces.
It is the sort of fabric that encourages you to make something comfortable and then mysteriously wear it three days in a row. We consider that a sign of a successful sewing project.
A Little More Structure: Pontoba
If you prefer your sports-inspired makes with a little more structure, Pontoba is another good option. It has the comfort of a knit but enough body to hold a clean silhouette, making it especially useful for pull-on trousers, fitted jackets, skirts and smart casual pieces.
This is where activewear and everyday wardrobes overlap rather nicely. A pair of stretch pull-on trousers can be comfortable enough for travelling or working from home while still looking considerably smarter than your oldest pair of joggers.
Patterns for the Sporty-ish Wardrobe
You don't have to be training for anything in particular. These patterns are equally useful for walking the dog, travelling, pottering about or simply appreciating a very good elasticated waist.
Transformation Challenge: Windsurf Sails
The Transformation Challenge brought a first for the Sewing Bee: teamwork. The contestants paired up and were given huge colourful windsurf sails, with each sewer responsible for one half of a coordinated outfit.
Windsurf sail cloth is a world away from a soft jersey. Its stiffness and technical construction meant the teams had to think differently about shape, seams and how the two garments would work together. Anna and Rebecca took the win with their coordinated top and trouser combination.
We don't have a stack of redundant windsurf sails hiding at the back of the Croft Mill warehouse, but if the challenge made you fancy experimenting with technical cloth, ripstop is a much more practical place to begin.
Ripstop has a distinctive reinforced grid running through the cloth and is often chosen where strength without excessive weight is important. Depending on the particular fabric, it can work for lightweight jackets, outdoor trousers, bags, utility garments and sports-inspired pieces.
Made to Measure: Bowling Shirts With Personality
The final challenge was probably our favourite of the week. Each contestant had to make a classic bowling shirt and then completely personalise it with free motion embroidery and appliqué.
The design on the back had to represent a hobby or favourite team, while the front featured the sewer's name. The results ranged from ice hockey and beloved pets to Anna's wonderfully detailed table scene, proving that a fairly simple shirt can become something completely individual once you start treating the surface like a blank canvas.
Appliqué is a lovely way to customise a garment without needing to embroider every detail by hand. Shapes are cut from contrasting fabrics, positioned on the garment and stitched around the edges. An iron-on fusible web can make life considerably easier by holding those pieces in place before you sew.
And if you'd rather skip straight to the decorative bit, embroidered patches are possibly the quickest route to personalising a jacket, bag, shirt or sweatshirt. Position one carefully, stitch it securely and suddenly the plain garment you've owned for three years looks considerably more interesting.
Sportswear, But Make It Wearable
What we liked most about Sports Week was the variety. At one end you had genuinely technical swimming shorts and windsurf sails; at the other, soft lounge fabrics and beautifully personalised bowling shirts.
That's quite a good reflection of sewing your own activewear too. You can go full performance mode with stretch technical fabrics, or simply borrow the comfort and practicality of sportswear and make a pair of modal French terry joggers that will never see the inside of a gym.
Either counts as Sports Week sewing as far as we're concerned.
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