Yasmin Proctor-Kent displayed waistcoats made by her dad behind her while competing on The Great British Sewing Bee.Credit: Love Productions Ltd 2025
Scientist sewing bees In September, Yasmin Proctor-Kent, a research and development scientist at the cancer diagnostics company Leica Biosystems who is currently based in Melbourne, Australia, reached the finals of the 2025 BBC series of The Great British Sewing Bee. The television competition, which has now completed 11 seasons and boasts more than a dozen international versions, tests amateur sewers’ skills in pattern making, altering garments and creating made-to-measure pieces under time pressure. Previous scientist ‘bees’ include cell biologist Charlotte Newland, who won series four in 2016. Afterwards, Newland left a career in scientific publishing to become a sewing teacher, and she now works as a birth and postnatal doula. “The sewing bee made me a lot more flexible and less terrified of not having a predictable work progression,” she says.
I love how the skills you develop as a scientist can be applied to sewing and other crafts. Like science, sewing requires creativity, as well as an initial idea or concept to get going. Both are about research and experimenting, and are iterative processes, in which you apply knowledge gained from work that you and others have done previously.
Despite these parallels, craftwork such as sewing and knitting is often undervalued or dismissed because it’s seen as ‘women’s work’. But our brains work in the same way during crafting and research. For me, training in science and having a passion for sewing have been mutually beneficial — with each discipline supporting the other and driving my success.
Growing up, sewing was always part of my background. The Great British Sewing Bee was also always a regular fixture on our family television and was a source of connection to my family after I moved out to attend university (first at the University of Sheffield, UK, where I did a master’s degree in biochemistry and genetics, then at Newcastle University, UK, where I undertook doctoral research in mitochondrial biology).
My dad was my favourite person in the world, and a keen sewer. He had an innate creativity and curiosity that shaped my own — it almost feels genetic. He trained as an armourer in the UK Royal Air Force before moving into information technology, and if something needed doing while we were growing up — electrics, plumbing, repairing a hole in an item of clothing — he just did it.
Although I get my love of sewing from him, his way of sewing was very different from mine. Before starting, he ensured that he had all the right equipment and did tonnes of research. He wouldn’t use a sewing machine to make a garment if, for example, it wasn’t historically accurate to do so, choosing instead to stitch by hand.
It was his sudden and unexpected death from cancer two years ago, aged 62, that made me decide to apply to be a contestant on the sewing bee. Sewing — and by extension the sewing bee — was our shared connection, and applying felt like a way to carry that forward.
Becoming a ‘bee’
The programme’s application process began with sending in pictures of things you’d made. This was hard for me, because I hadn’t really documented anything I’d sewn, and just had the occasional selfie I’d sent to friends or family. The next step was a series of interviews, followed by an in-person sewing audition. Initially, I wasn’t cast — and I felt a strange sense of relief, because I wasn’t sure I was really a ‘TV person’. I’m loud in volume, but not necessarily in presence. I didn’t think I fitted the mould. But two weeks later, someone dropped out, and I was invited to take their place. I couldn’t believe I’d made it through.
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