National Sewing Month

National Sewing Month

Did you know that September is National Sewing Month? If you like to sew, hopefully you have been celebrating some this month. It’s not too late to participate! Of course, sewing is a year-round activity anyway, and we hope that National Sewing Month simply serves as an inspiration. So whether you’re reading this with a few moments of September left to spare to squeeze in a project, or you’re wanting to sew now to plan for National Sewing Month 2018—here’s some info and several ways you can celebrate National Sewing Month. Celebrate all year long!

History

In existence since 1982, National Sewing Month was originally emplaced by President Ronald Reagan to celebrate the importance of sewing. National Sewing Month is sponsored by the Sewing & Craft Alliance—which is a sewing shop in Pennsylvania that offers instruction, classes, and info—as well as the American Sewing Guild, which is a national guild headquartered in Houston, Texas with both local and national events as well as online activities. The guild has chapters in many cities across the country and membership has many benefits, such as special events, discounts, and conferences. So it makes sense that the guild helps to sponsor National Sewing Month to spread the word!

There’s even a website dedicated to National Sewing Month: nationalsewingmonth.org. It offers information on sewing, including marketing materials for individuals and businesses, articles, and free project tutorial downloads. Over the years, National Sewing Month has been celebrated in many ways and with many different events that evolve with the changing times. The creative and relaxing elements of sewing have been touted, as well as the rewarding side. The guild enjoys reminding people that sewing can be therapeutic and beneficial in many ways.

Ways to Celebrate National Sewing Month

So what are some of the ways you can celebrate National Sewing Month? Well, besides the obvious one of simply doing some sewing, you can come up with some of your own or take some of these suggestions:

  • Find and make a new project (or several)
  • Create a sewing project and post a photo of it on social media using the tag #NationalSewingMonth
  • Browse sewing shops online and other organizations for goodies! Some shops offer free patterns or giveaways and have special contests and events
  • Sew a gift for someone (good planning for Christmas!)
  • Organize a charity sewing project (include some friends if you’d like)
  • Introduce a friend or family member to the joys of sewing
  • Teach a sewing class in a local club or youth organization
  • Take a sewing class at your local shop (and take a friend with you)
  • Create your own local sewing club and schedule/host meetings

Hopefully now your brain is flowing, and you’re thinking of even more ideas of ways to celebrate. Make your own list and start planning now for 2018! Organize a project that you and your friends can be working on all year so that it will be ready for next September. For example, some charities accept donations for handmade items such as chemo hats or NICU blankets. If you get a group together and start now, by next September you will have a large stack ready to donate!

The 2008 featured project on nationalsewingmonth.org was a bag designed to be comfortable for women to carry post-mastectomy. This is another great example of a simple sewing project that can be helpful for someone in need—one that you may not hear of too often but someone will definitely appreciate.

The Goodies

Don’t forget to check online for giveaways and sweepstakes to enter for National Sewing Month. Some businesses and websites give away great prizes, such as tons of sewing accessories, sewing machine cases, patterns, fabric, thread, tools, or even a brand-new sewing machine! You might want to try searching for “National Sewing Month giveaways” or “National Sewing Month sweepstakes” and see what you come up with. Enter one, enter them all! Why not? It’s always fun winning stuff, especially when it’s related to something you love! Some websites even have contests throughout the entire month, so keep checking back all month long.

Spread the Word

Besides actually sewing, the best thing you can do to promote National Sewing Month is to tell your friends about it—the sewing and the non-sewing alike. Who knows, you may make some converts out of the non-sewing! In addition to posting on social media (Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter are probably your best bets), you may even consider creating a blog to post photos and instructions for some of your projects. Especially if you’ve been sewing for a long time and have many projects, others want to hear from you! Beginning and experienced sewists will be inspired by your creations, and you may even be impressed to see how great they look online. You don’t even have to make a fancy blog—just set up something simple (or get a family member or friend to help you out—offer to trade him or her for a homemade item of choice!) that you can post photos on and link your social media to. Before you know it, you’ll have a pretty good online portfolio that you can share with anyone you like!

So there you go—plenty of ideas and reasons to celebrate National Sewing Month and tell others about the joys and benefits of sewing. The more you tell others about National Sewing Month as well, the more fun it’ll be to celebrate it in 2018!

The Inspired Sewist offers sewing furniture, machines, supplies, repair, classes, and events. We can help you learn new techniques or inspire you to get started, guiding you through any project you’d like to complete. Contact us for all your sewing and quilting needs.