Today is National Quilting Day

 “National Quilting Day was established in 1991 by the National Quilting Association. Officially, National Quilting Day is the third Saturday in March, but many quilters make their projects month long and focus on charitable causes in groups or as individuals.

The purpose of the day is to continue the tradition of quilting through education and service. Quilt shops, fabric stores and local guilds host a variety of events and classes throughout the month to expand the knowledge of existing quilters and draw a new generation into the craft. Each year, the National Quilting Association introduces a new logo block for quilting groups and individuals to add to their Quilting Day quilt.
Whether you reside in the U.S. or elsewhere around the world, the goals are the same:

• Make it a service day and work on a quilt for your favorite cause — national projects such as ABC Quilts, Project Linus, or one of the great ones for the troops. If you don't have a favorite service project, start one! Check with police and fire departments, children's services, nursing or rehabilitation facilities or local hospitals to see if they have a need for quilts.
   
• Organize an exhibit for your local library or historical society. Exhibit quilts, tools, books, etc.
   
• Find a local shelter for battered/abused women with children — a log cabin 'home' for those without a real home.
   
• Check with VA Hospitals — lap quilts for invalids.
   
• Organize a quilt history day or a quilt documentation project.
   
• If a military facility is nearby, contact the social services there to see where to give quilts or how to send to soldiers or their families.
   
• Contact local churches to see if someone in congregation needs a little home love.
   
• Check with local hospital about giving to first baby born on National Quilt Day, 2011.
   
• Nursing homes for those who don't have much, or are newly without their own home may be a good place to donate quilts.
   
• Work on a quilt with a school, 4-H, or scout group, or spend the day passing along your love of quilting to your children, grandchildren, nieces, nephews, or neighbors.
   
• Contact a local senior citizens group or facility and organize a show and tell of their quilts and yours. Or sponsor a sewing day to make lap quilts for seniors. Turn it into an oral history project to gather quilters' stories from your community. You will be amazed at what you learn.
   
• Organize a stitch-in, banquet, workshop, lecture, retreat, bus trip or even a shop hop.
   
• Celebrate on your own — visit your favorite quilt shops, pass your love of quilting on to a child or friend, or spend a few hours sewing or reading your favorite quilt book.

Make a quilt and share it with someone else. After you and/or your guild do this, please send us information and pictures of how you shared. We want to show others what you have done.
Free project for 2012 National Quilting Day :pdf download a free quilt pattern:

Alex Anderson and Ricky Tims, hosts of The Quilt Show, want quilters, sewers and crafters everywhere to help them celebrate International Quilting Day and are offering free access to over 140 of their shows from their Quilt Show website beginning  March 15, through Sunday, March 17.

They are also offering terrific prizes from companies like Bernina, Gammill, Superior Threads, AccuQuilt, C&T Publishing and RJR Fabric.  

  And the grand prize .....a new Bernina 550QE sewing machine! Yowser!!!!!

If you read my recent 'tongue in cheek'   Quilter's ADD  

 post, then you might figure out that I'll be multi-tasking at my usual clip of sewing, quilting, reading, and watch their free shows and checking out all of the rest of their fun, along with all of yours!

Be sure to post about your sewing and quilting...inquiring minds like mine want to know!  I need to know I'm not the only crazy ....next word..quilter... in the our bunch of bananas!

I love to blog hop and see all of your doings, as well. And if you leave comments, I always hop over to read your blog!  Let me know what you have going and what you're working on. I love to connect my real life with my virtual one!

Free Printable Joann's Fabric March in store coupon for 40% off one item/cut
Free Quilt Pattern: http://nqaquilts.org/userfiles/file/QQ_Projects2011_Pointing.pdf


Michele Bilyeu blogs With Heart and Hands as she shares a quilting journey through her life in Salem, Oregon and Douglas, Alaska and all of her AAQI Quilting. Sharing thousands of links to Free Quilt and Quilt Block Patterns and encouraging others to join in the Liberated Quilting Challenge and make or donate small art quilts to the Alzheimer's Art Quilt Initiative (AAQI) Help us change the world, one little quilt at a time!