Catch up with Great British Sewing Bee presenter Sara Pascoe

The Great British Sewing Bee is back for 2025 and we're catching up with this year's host, Sara Pascoe. Sara has been away from the show for a year on maternity leave, but is back with all the latest gossip ahead of this year's series.

Watch the new series of The Great British Sewing Bee on Tuesday 15th July, 9pm, BBC One.

Who is Sara Pascoe?

Comedian and actress Sara is best known for her role as Coco Lomax in the BBC comedies W1A and Twenty Twelve and appearances on 8 Out Of 10 Cats, Live at the Apollo and QI.

She also hosts the panel show Guessable on Comedy Central. She appeared in The Thick Of It, Free Agents and Being Human, wrote and starred in the BBC2 comedy Out of Her Mind and has written two books – Animal: The Autobiography of a Female Body and Sex Power Money.

Sara Pascoe was born in Dagenham and grew up in Romford. She went on to study English at the University of Sussex. Before launching her comedy career, she worked as a tour guide in London.

How old is Sara Pascoe?

She's 41 and was born on 22 May 1981.

How tall is Sara Pascoe?

1.6m (5"4).

We caught up with Sara to discover how she got on with the newest batch of contestants and find out about her favourite challenges from this year's show…

Read our interview with 2025's Sewing Bee presenter Sara Pascoe!

How did it feel to return for a new series of Sewing Bee?

It was very nice to be back. I’d really missed everyone and had awful FOMO (Fear Of Missing Out) not being there last year. I also appreciated – having had a bit of a break – coming back and feeling very comfortable in the role.

Obviously, when it's new, you're working out how to do the job: what works, what doesn’t. When I first started, I found talking to the sewers all day sometimes felt a bit like: ‘Oh, what should I ask them next?’ Whereas now, I've really bedded into the small talk and all the sewers this year are really good chatters. They’ve all got banter. They’re really good at Dad jokes and puns. And they’re happy to muck around. None of them are too stressed about the sewing… or if they were stressed, they hid it well.

That's what you want, isn't it? People to have fun with and them not looking too terrified…

It goes without saying, they do 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 and all 12 were brilliant.

They seem to get better and better every year, while the challenges get harder and harder…

That’s what happens. I guess they're trying to devise things viewers haven’t seen at home. Also, some of our sewers have been watching the show since it started – they know what we've done – so challenges have to be something they're not expecting. They’ve all done so well.

Do you ever think they should be given more time?

I was really worried about that – especially with the pattern challenge – because it always feels like it's 15 minutes too quick. We had the opposite this time, though. People were finishing early. One week, someone was having a snooze with their legs up on the desk and I thought: ‘Right, we need to take time off…’ LAUGHS They are too good. We don't want people never finishing. It needs to be enough time unless they've made a mistake. And enough time to be interrupted by me and the judges. They do have a lot of interruptions. It must be so difficult to concentrate.

Did the judges find it harder than ever to decide who had to leave each week?

Yes. They had to get very strict sometimes. They would say before they started: ‘Look, you've all done really, really well. That does mean we’re gonna have to be really finickity in order to decide.’ There were several times when they had to discuss it for ages because these are such tiny incremental differences between them.

When there’s the smallest of margins between them, it must be really emotional for the sewers – and you guys – when they have to leave the sewing room?

Well, the thing I don't like is if someone goes home because they've messed it up. Then, they go thinking: ‘I've wasted my chance…’ I don't think we had any of those this series. No one had a disaster on made-to-measure. It was always: ‘These people are stronger…’ They went home knowing they'd done their best, but the others had done slightly better. Psychologically, that is easier to take as you look around and think: ‘These people are amazing…’ It’s harder when people feel: ‘Oh, I let myself down…’

It sounds like it's going to be a corker of a series…

Of the ones I've done, it’s definitely my favourite and definitely has the strongest sewers. I can't believe I can say that because the last series I did two years ago, I’d have thought: ‘Well, they just can't top this.’ But somehow… LAUGHS There's just so many people who are brilliant at sewing. I’m so glad they keep applying for the show.

And they’re so creative, too. It's not just perfection or near perfection with sewing technicalities, it’s the imaginations they have…

It’s astounding and it's great because they have very different styles of creativity. We had a whole age range of people with different backgrounds and hobbies. It meant their brains go in completely different directions.

Tell us about the sewers…

We had someone who works as a Scientist. Then, we’ve got a student, people who sing and do creative jobs, a bus driver, a lecturer and people who are retired.

And what about the themes?  You’ve got new ones including Korea and 1920’s…

Yeah, they’ve never done the 1920s before. That’s an incredible era with iconic clothing, so it was really great. As a pattern challenge, you’ve got plus fours – trousers I’d never seen before – and they're just stunning. As soon as you see them, you're like: ‘I need a pair.’ Korea Week was amazing. Korea is at the forefront of culture and influencing everything around the world and we had an amazing guest judge, Fashion Designer Eudon Choi. For Kids Week, for the first time, we did adaptive pattern challenge and had another guest judge, Adaptive Fashion designer, Victoria Jenkins. It feels like a really important subject for home sewers, but also in terms of the industry. It’s realising there are little things you can do, whether that's fabric choice, more poppers or waistbands, that means clothing is more accessible for people. It might be for someone who’s got a prosthetic or a stoma or it might be because an autistic child can't have certain fabrics on their skin. Or it might be for someone who’s ill and finds it more difficult to get dressed. There’s a really wide spectrum.

What was your favourite week?

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. Once the models were wearing them, they were horrible. The next week, you know, quite often the creations that win stay in the room. We had to keep moving them out of shot because they were too creepy. LAUGHS It's so exciting when you see sewers execute something that's technically good, but also hits a brief so well.

The pattern challenge that week was inspired by the most extraordinary costume designer in Hollywood history, the late Edith Head. She won eight Academy Awards – more than anyone else…

Yes, they had to make a jacket inspired by one she designed for The Birds. Jackets are really, really hard in the pattern challenge because they’re only ever going to have five hours, aren't they? It's not very much time, but they did it really well. It was just great to celebrate her as a designer because she might be someone people don't know.

But they’ve probably watched some of the movies she worked on…

About half of them had. There were still lots of people who hadn't ever seen a Hitchcock film.

What's your favourite transformation this year?

Ah, they were pretty good at transformations. The best was when they had to use see-through fabrics and choose which parts of the body they concealed and which they exposed. They made quite wearable garments.

Was there anything you could see yourself wearing down the street this year?

There was one sewer who had very similar taste to me, actually. She was making clothes and I kept thinking: ‘Yep, that's a bit of me.’ In the morning, I’d come in and she'd go: ‘Oh, I like your shoes…’ We were always sort of colour-coordinated… lots of pink, lots of bright colours.

How close was it in the final?

Well, I don't want to give too much away, but it was a rollercoaster. The last five episodes, I couldn't call it. We had some shock results and it was amazing because we then went into the final with absolutely no idea which of them was going to win. It's a lot more fun that way – rather than thinking it's a foregone conclusion as that person's clearly just a little bit better than the others. It should be really good television.

How much fun did you, Patrick and Esme have? We hear you took Mouse the dog up with you…

Mouse has had the most amazing time because he gets to escape my children and gets treated very, very well. And he's in one of the time calls. LAUGHS

Aww, so television stardom beckons…

Well, I think so. He's looking for an agent now, auditioning for drama school… Mouse had a lovely time. Obviously, he loves Patrick and Esme and going to see them in the morning in their dressing room.

He didn't wee over Esme this time?

He didn’t. He behaved himself. He's learned his lesson. He won't be invited back if he keeps doing that. LAUGHS We had a lovely time. Yorkshire is amazing and Leeds is a lovely place to live. You know the cliché about Northern people being so friendly is very based on truth. We love that mill and we know the people at the café and the small businesses based there. It just felt like going home, really.

What did you get up to in the green room? Were they good snacks this year?

The snacks were pretty good, still lots of sweeties. Esme is very keen for sweeties. I got quite into cup-a-soups as they fill you up and stop you snacking too much, but Patrick doesn't like them because they remind him of boarding school. We had a lot of bickering about that. Ooh, here’s some hot gossip for you: Patrick eats Esme’s leftovers at lunch. They've worked together such a long time that, when Esme puts her bowl on the floor, Patrick doesn't even ask… he just starts eating.

Well, it’s a very ecological series. You do the transformations and Reduce, Reuse, Recycle Week…

Absolutely, yes. Patrick hates waste and Esme’s quite small and doesn't finish her lunch.

What were the funniest moments for you?

For the launch of the series, Patrick and Esme had to dress up as a square and a triangle. That was pretty brilliant… going outside with them. Oh and Patrick dressed as a lollipop man one week. The most fun we had usually was filming our little sketches. We did a pastiche of The Shining for Movies Week.

Who was wielding the axe in that?

Oh, Patrick. He was like: ‘Here’s… Patty!’ It was very scary. LAUGHS I made them do Gangnam Style for Korea Week, too. 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.

When the sewers all return for the final, do you feel like a proud mum looking at what they achieved?

Yeah and also getting to meet their families… they come back with partners and children or best friends and parents if they're one of the younger ones. It’s really lovely meeting the whole community. The sewers become so close, you can tell they're going to be mates forever.

What are you up to outside of Sewing Bee?

I’m touring the UK, Europe and Australia from June, so there’s lots of writing and getting ready for that. The show’s called I Am A Strange Gloop and it's about losing yourself having children and trying to work out who you are.

Albie’s one and Theodore's three, so you've got your work cut out at the moment…

Yes. We’re in the trenches, as they say. Theodore’s talking, so him chatting and using phrases we've never heard before is really, really, really lovely. Albie is walking around causing havoc. It's lovely having two little boys. They're very sweet together. We’re having a lot of fun. Mouse is great with them. I think, sometimes, he feels a bit neglected compared to when he used to be the only boy, but they all have a lovely time. They are good at throwing balls for him. LAUGHS

Why Sara Pascoe is the perfect Sewing Bee presenter

As a former celebrity contestant, Sara is a brilliant addition to the show. She has real empathy for the contestants and brings her own brand of humour into the sewing room.

We love seeing how she bonds with the contestants and hope she's part of the programme for many years to come.

Get to know Sewing Bee judges Esme Young

Fashion designer Esme Young brings years of sewing experience to the Sewing Bee and is always quick to spot an unfinished hem!

Meet the iconic Sewing Bee judge Esme Young and learn the secrets of the sewing room.

Photography by BBC/Love Productions/Neil Sherwood