Grant, a designer originally from Scotland, founded the company in 2016 and also appears as a judge on the BBC reality show.
In this year’s Christmas celebrity special, Grant and fellow judge Esme Young will put the sewing skills of four celebrities to the test.
This will include English actress Kellie Bright, 48, who stars as Linda Carter in the BBC soap opera EastEnders, for which she won the 2015 British Soap Award for Best Actress and Best Dramatic Performance, Welsh singer and actor Ian ‘H’ Watkins, 48, who best known as one-fifth of Steps, British comedian and writer Fatiha El-Ghorri, 43, who recently starred in the Sky Max comedy Mr. Bigstuff with Danny Dyer, and English television personality Charlotte Crosby, 34, who is known for appearing in the MTV reality series Geordie Shore and winning the 12th series of Celebrity Big Brother.
They will put their twist on a pattern for an advent calendar, and turn onesies into a fun Christmas costume for a child in the transformation challenge –where the sewers are tasked with upcycling and overhauling old garments into something radically new.
Finally, they create an outfit made to measure their models, inspired by their favourite Christmas number one.
Grant said: “As always, the celebrities were really, really good fun. They all gave it a good go and made good stuff.
“Their standard was… average. A couple had done a bit of sewing.
“Charlotte had done some textiles at school and Kellie is quite an accomplished crafter.
“You could tell she was really loving the opportunity. Fatiha was hilarious.”
“The advent calendars were genuinely really good. Really good. And then, the transformation challenge was turning a onesie into a child’s festive outfit. Fatiha did a princess costume and H did a reindeer and managed to make a very impressive set of antlers. That was probably the highlight. The made-to-measures were inspired by a Christmas No. 1. Charlotte Cosby did a sausage roll.”
“That was easing them in gently. It was all flat and just topstitching pockets on and things. It was simple, but it was fun. It’s also something people watching at home can have a go at with their kids. They managed quite well. Fatiha put a tagine on hers – I thought that was great because Christmas means different things to different people and, in all of these challenges, you’re expressing who you are. They all did that,” adds Young.
“For the transformation challenge, they had to turn a onesie into a child’s festive outfit. That is always a tricky one. And the made-to-measures were all inspired by their favourite Christmas No.1s.
“Kellie made a jumpsuit inspired by the video of Last Christmas by Wham! It was good and she’d made pom-poms for snowballs. H [Ian ‘H’ Watkins] did a Tom Jones-inspired dragon-y cape which was quite spectacular. It was half-Tom Jones and half-Welsh mythology. Fatiha made a fur-hooded kaftan inspired by East 17’s Stay Another Day.
“The made-to-measures were pretty good and entertaining. I mean, Charlotte’s sausage roll outfit was just funny. She wasn’t having it, that it wasn’t brilliant,” says Grant.
The Great British Sewing Bee, Celebrity Christmas Special 2024 comes to BBC One and BBC iPlayer on Thursday, December 19.
