March is National Craft Month. Crocheters also specifically celebrate it as National Crochet Month, known better as NatCroMo. It’s the perfect time of year to reset and really enjoy your knitting, crochet, and crafting.
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What is National Craft Month?
The Craft & Hobby Association designated Match as National Craft Month back in 1994. (The organization has now rebranded as the Association for Creative Industries.) Initially, it was simply to celebrate the craft industries. Over the years, there are ebbs and flows as to how “craft” as seen by the larger worlds of art, design, and making. Celebrating their value is an important part of making sure to recognize that crafters are important and valuable in our society.
Why It Matters
Crafters play an important role in our world. They offer designs, patterns, and projects to help inspire creativity in every day life. They add to special occasions and holidays with the things that they create. Crafting offers many health benefits, not the least of which is stress relief, so crafters bring that to the world as well.
The world of fine art has sometimes looked down on craft. And even within the craft world, there are divisions with some crafts elevated above the rest. But they’re all valuable, meaningful, and important. Celebrating National Crochet Month helps remind everyone of this value.
How People Celebrate National Craft Month
The Association for Creative Industries holds their annual conference – Creativation+ – in March. Throughout the month they also recognize crafters and the craft industry on their blogs, in the press, and on social media.
Over the years individuals and groups within the craft community have also found many ways to celebrate National Craft Month including:
- Learning a new craft. It’s a great time to sign up for craft classes.
- Exploring a new technique in a craft you already know.
- Having virtual or in-person craft parties.
- Knitting / crocheting in public.
- Yarnbombing.
- Teaching others to craft.
- Promoting crafts and crafters online and through word of mouth.
- Starting new projects.
- Learning the history of crafts.
- Watching craft documentaries.
- Finishing old WIPs.
- Crafting every day.
- Participating in online craft challenges, forums, and community discussions.
- Reaping the health benefits of crafting
Basically, anything that you can think of to do to celebrate the value of crafting is a way to celebrate National Craft Month. Here are some other ways to celebrate. And here’s a calendar of National Craft Month ideas.
What is NatCroMo?
In the year 2000, the Crochet Guild of America established March as National Crochet Month, or NatCroMo. Crochet is obviously a subset of other crafting. People in the art world have sometime looked down on crafts as the “ugly step sibling” of art. Similarly, crochet has sometimes been treated as the lesser of all the fiber arts. But obviously it’s not. And NatCroMo celebrates it to make sure that more people realize that.
How To Celebrate NatCroMo
You can apply any of the National Craft Month ideas to specifically celebrating crochet. You might also celebrate NatCroMo by:
- Buy a crochet book.
- Purchase or use a fabulous skein of luxury yarn.
- Organize your yarn and crochet supplies.
- Tell someone what makes you love crochet.
- Join a crochet-along.
- Find new crochet patterns to enjoy.
- Join the National Crochet Month Facebook Group. And follow the related blog tour.
- Check if your local library and/or craft stores are offering anything in person or online for National Craft Month. Many are!
Here are some other ways to celebrate NatCroMo.
NatCroMo and National Craft Month 2021 Sales, Deals, and Events
Here are some of the things that people and businesses are doing this year for NatCroMo and National Craft Month:
Annie’s
Annie’s Craft Store is offering discounted $1.99 shipping on all online orders of $15+.
Brother USA and A Beautiful Mess
Brother USA has partnered with the A Beautiful Mess blog to share tips on using crafting to de-stress. They’ll emphasize Brother USA tools including The Brother P-touch Embellish ELITE and ScanNCutDX SDX85S.
Creativebug
Creativebug is offering a month of craft classes for just $1 in March.
Darn Good Yarn
Darn Good Yarn has a variety of fun sales in March. For example, use promo code BOWL20 to get 20% off off a cute cat-shaped yarn bowl. Or save 50% off a Yarn Storage Bag, no promo code needed. And you can always check their sales bin for discounts on yarn and other products.
Interweave National Craft Month Giveaway
Interweave is giving away a bunch of stuff for various crafts. You can enter daily to win.
Leisure Arts
The Leisure Arts blog will celebrate National Craft Month by sharing some of their favorite craft supplies throughout the month. Don’t forget to check out my Leisure Arts knit and crochet books.
Zulily
Get 40% off many craft-related supples at Zulily in March. For example, find discounted books and yarn in the knitting section of the website.
Fun fact: In 2015, I was part of a designer blog tour with Crochetville for National Crochet Month. This is a big annual blog tour; check it out this year. In 2019, I did the Hooked on Yarn Instagram challenge for NatCroMo.
You might like to learn: Knitting as Occupational Therapy
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