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Home | National Quilting Day

Mark your calendar for the third Saturday in March!

We’re looking forward to NQD 2019 on March 16th! The Quilt Alliance is proud to be the coordinator of this special day! Check this page often for fun and meaningful ideas for celebrating National Quilting Day, graphics you can use to publicize your own NQD events and a home base for this important day to honor and promote quilting!

Ideas from the National Quilting Association for celebrating National Quilting Day

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    Make it a service day

    Work on a quilt for the Happy Birth Day, Baby! project or for your favorite cause – national projects such as ABC Quilts and Project Linus, or local projects. If you don’t have a local service project, National Quilting Day is the perfect time to 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.

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    Organize an exhibit

    Organize an exhibit for your local library or historical society. Exhibit quilts, tools, books, etc. Donate books to the library. Or make arrangements with your local library, historical society, quilt shop, or other public space to demonstrate how to make and attach simple quilt labels. Provide printed instructions and encourage everyone to label all their quilts and value them as family and community history.

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    Share your quilting skills

    Offer to teach a simple quilt project to a school, 4-H, scout, or other youth group, or spend the day passing along your love of quilting to your children, grandchildren, nieces, nephews, or neighbors.

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    Save Quilt Stories

    Organize a quilt history day or a quilt documentation project. Invite members of the community to share their quilts and documents the quilts for your state documentation project. If you don’t have a state project, work with other quilters in the state to start one! A good place to start is with your local or state historical society, or search the internet for quilt documentation projects.

Down a free quilt pattern to celebrate National Quilting Day!

Click on a partner logo below to view their free downloadable patterns and projects:

 

Make a quilt for the new kid in town!

This year, we are so excited to rekindle a project founded by the National Quilting Association – Happy Birth Day, Baby! Individuals and groups are welcome to participate – it’s easy! Make a quilt for the first baby born on National Quilting Day in your local hospital. Find our free downloadable pattern and instructions and full details here.

Document your quilts

This National Quilting Day, we encourage you to document your quilts. Add those labels you’ve been putting off! Interview a family member or friend as part of our Go Tell It! project. Or have a documentation day at your group or guild.

 

Tell about how you celebrate National Quilting Day!

We would love to hear how you mark this year’s 27th anniversary of National Quilting Day. Post your photos leading up to on March 17, on the National Quilting Day Facebook page. Please subscribe to our free eNewsletter to receive updates on our plans for National Quilting Day, as well as news on all of our projects.


National Quilting Day graphics

Help yourself to these free downloadable graphics to post on your blog, social media page, website, etc.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 Customizable National Quilting Day Posters

Download these posters to fill in details for your quilt shop, guild or group celebrations.

Choose which size you need. Click to download a pdf.
Letter (8.5″ x 11″)
Legal (8.5″ x 14″)
Tabloid (11″ x 17″)
A4 (8.3″ x 11.7″ or 210mm x 297mm)
A3 (11.7″ x 16.5″ or 297mm x 420mm

 

 

 

 

 

 

The History of National Quilting Day

In 1989, the Kentucky Heritage Quilt Society organized a “Quilters’ Day Out” on the third Saturday of March to celebrate the rich tradition of quiltmaking in Kentucky. In 1991, National Quilting Association officers were so enthused with the concept and success of “Quilters’ Day Out” that they voted to take it to a national level.

The first National Quilting Day was observed in 1992 and since then it has grown into a global celebration for all quiltmakers and quilt lovers. 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.”