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.
There are ebbs and flows into how much people celebrate NatCroMo, too. However, it’s always important!
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
Over the years individuals and groups within the craft community have also found many ways to celebrate National Craft Month including:
- Follow along with Marly Bird’s Daily Inspiration Prompts.
- 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.
- Become BiCrafty.
- 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.
Marly Bird and NatCroMo
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.
National Craft Month Deals and Specials
Every year various shops and individuals offer discounts and deals for National Craft Month and National Crochet Month.
For example, this year, Agrarian Artisan announced 25% off the price of their March Crochet Scarf pattern on Ravelry throughout the entire month.
As we hear about additional March sales, we’ll update you!
What are you going to do in order to celebrate the importance and joy of crafting this month?
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