As far as I’m concerned, everyday is National Quilting Day. In reality, Saturday, March 21st is the National Day of celebration this year.
In my lifetime, I’ve seen many holidays created, Grandparents Day, Secretaries Day, Bring your daoughter to work day, etc. But I’ve never seen a newly made holiday that I appreciate more than National Quilting Day.
It is a special holiday set aside to celebrate quilts and quiltmakers- past, present and future. First celebrated in 1989, when the Kentucky Heritage Guild organized a “Quilters’ Day Out’ on the third Saturday of March, a day, they said, to celebrate the rich tradition of quiltmaking in Kentucky. In 1991, the National Quilting Association liked the concept enough that they voted to take it a national level. (I’ll bet that vote was unanimous.)
The first National Quilting Day was observed in 1992. Since then, the celebration has grown into an international celebration, with the entire month unofficially deemed “Quilting Month.” Helen Storbeck, one of the founders of National Quilting Day, wrote in The Quilting Quarterly, “Groups of quilters were encouraged to hold special events, publishers and shop owners were invited to sponsor promotions especially for quilters and it quickly became a grassroots endeavor with quilters in every part of the country participating. In the first year of National Quilting Day, quilters in other countries asked to participate. They were welcomed with open arms. As our feelings of a community network has evolved to include a world community, it is only appropriate that quilters and quilt lovers everywhere united to give recognition to the special art form.”
NQA continues the celebration by using a contest to determine a National Quilting Day project each year. This year’s project, Crooked Path by Danielle Bohannon is shown here. Instructions can be found on the NQA website. Whether you make this pattern for personal use or for charitable giving or simply enjoy looking at it, have fun celebrating National Quilting Day!