No actual sewing today but I was really happy to be involved in the Sewover50 lounge at the Stitch Festival show in London last weekend.

To be honest the show wasn’t initially on my radar as I was focused on events later in the year but one of my IG friends Sue of @susanyoungsewing contacted me and asked if I would help run a lounge area that they had set aside for Sew Over 50 members.

Although I live relatively close to London it’s still quite a performance to actually get there and I visit London surprisingly less than I thought I would when I moved down here.  Our rail service between the coast and the capital is notoriously unreliable and at this time of year, there are lots of works on the lines creating lots of potential cancellations. In addition, while it’s less than an hour’s drive, parking in London is a nightmare and there’s also the congestion charge to contend with as well.

With those things in mind, the OH and I decided to make a weekend of it and went up on Friday, did some London things like visiting the British Museum and having lots of nice food and drink. Then on Saturday, I went over to the Business Design Centre to meet the Gang.  Unfortunately, Sue, herself couldn’t be there but I did meet quite a few other people that I’d only known through the internet before now and had a lovely day chatting and wandering around and only bought one item.

Sew Over50 is an Instagram group started by @JudithRosalind and co-run with Sandy @sunnydayz06 and Sue. Judith highlighted the lack of representation of older sewists in the sewing world. She started a group which is now grown to something like 40000 members who communicate via Instagram sharing on makes, tips and advice and moral support at times and I thought it would be lovely to actually go up and meet some of the people that I’ve been in touch with via Instagram.

It was essentially a trade show and was full of fabric shops and lots of the UK’s indie pattern designers were here together with many other stitching crafts. The highlight was the Stitch Stage where fellow sewists could show off their creations.

The lounge went down a treat, lots of people dropped in for a sit-down and a chat. I met quite a few SewOver50 people and other online sewing peeps – annoyingly, I didn’t take photos of everyone. It was a lovely time and it’s given me a taste for future events.

Were you there? Did you buy anything? Did you meet any of your friends in your phone?

Thanks for dropping by,