Paducah, Kentucky, USA - Quilt City, USA, Nov. 08, 2018 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- One of the largest annual celebrations of quilting is National Quilting Day. Taking place the third Saturday of March every year, National Quilting Day is the one universal celebration of quilting and quilters. Since 2016, the nonprofit Quilt Alliance has run this event in an effort to promote quilting and support the quilting community.
With a desire to expand the reach of National Quilting Day going forward, the Quilting Alliance will partner with The National Quilt Museum. The partnership is an effort to maximize the resources each organization has available in order to expand the reach of National Quilting Day. National Quilt Museum CEO Frank Bennett says, “With over 21 million active quilters in the United States and millions more around the world, National Quilting Day should be a significant annual day recognized by quilters and nonquilters alike. We hope that we can help educate new audiences and spread the word about this annual event that is so intrinsic to the quilting community.”
National Quilting Day is celebrated by quilters, quilt companies, quilt guilds, and anyone passionate about quilting. Events and programs to date have included service projects, exhibits, quilt documentation days, and spreading the word about quilting through social media, websites, and other communication.
Both organizations hope that every quilter, social influencer, and company in the quilting space will become a part of the effort to expand the reach of National Quilting Day, and by doing so, expand the reach of quilting. Quilt Alliance Executive Director Amy Milne says, “Our longterm goal is for National Quilting Day to receive broad national media coverage and show up on every calendar.”
About the Quilt Alliance
The nonprofit Quilt Alliance was founded in 1993 to work with individuals and groups to document, preserve, and share the rich history of quilts and quiltmaking. The Quilt Alliance’s Quilters’ S.O.S – Save Our Stories (QSOS) project is archived at the American Folklife Center at the Library of Congress. QSOS was launched in 1999 to document the stories of today’s quilters. It is the largest oral history collection of its kind, and documents the stories of over 1,200 quilters from all over the United States and abroad. Go Tell it at the Quilt Show! is the organization’s newest oral history initiative, a 3-minute-or-less video show-and-tell series that captures quilt stories where quilters gather. www.QuiltAlliance.org.
About The National Quilt Museum
Now in its 27th year, the National Quilt Museum is a quilt community advocacy organization. Through exhibits, education programs, and preservation efforts, the museum brings the work of today’s quilters to new audiences worldwide. The museum is a top destination for quilters and art enthusiasts, hosting visitors from all 50 U.S. states and more than 40 foreign countries every year. Its rotating exhibits feature quilts from its own collection of more than 600 artifacts, as well as outstanding national and international touring collections. More than 120,000 people annually experience the museum’s in-facility and traveling exhibits.
In addition to exhibiting the work of today’s quilter, the museum is committed to educational outreach, and its programs annually attract more than 4,000 young people and adults. Educational opportunities include the School Block Challenge, Quilt Camp, and the museum’s acclaimed hands-on program, The Creative Stitch, in which people of all ages with no previous experience learn to make a quilt block.
The National Quilt Museum has won the TripAdvisor Certificate of Excellence for five consecutive years, making it one of the top tourist attractions in the world by visitor review. The museum made Southern Living’s “Top 25 Museums in the South” list in 2017 and it has been featured in Midwest Living, CNN Travel, National Geographic, USA Today, and the Chicago Tribune. www.quiltmuseum.org
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