Saturday 29 April 2023: Judith Staley with a team of 4 SewOver50 followers conducted research of pattern companies from 1 January to 31 December 2022 to identify the visibility of older sewists. This research helps to show if the SewOver50 account and the community has made a difference since 2018.

When SewOver50 commenced in August 2018 Judith started the SewOver50 account and was then ably teamed with Sandy, there were 300 followers of the account in that first month. Today there are over 46,000 followers. That’s more followers than many pattern companies have on Instagram.

In 2018 Judith felt underrepresented by sewing companies and in the media. Many sewists were feeling the same at the time and many still do. However the Sewcialists put out a call to kickstart underrepresented groups in the online sewing community.

That’s when Judith put up her hand to lead the way for older sewists to become more visible online and through pattern companies.

What wasn’t available at that time was any data or research to show how underrepresented older sewists were in the community.

After working tirelessly to raise the visibility of older sewists, Judith was assisted by a team of 4 sewists from the sewing community to show what the visibility is of older sewists was in 2022.