Looking for a way to help your community in 2010? It's as easy as making a pillowcase and donating it to a local charity - a nursing home, women's shelter, homeless shelter, children's hospital, Child Welfare Services, ... the list goes on and on.

BERNINA has partnered with American Patchwork & Quilting to sponsor the One Million Pillowcase Challenge, a year-long challenge to make and donate a million (or more!) pillowcases to local charities all over the country. Visit www.allpeoplequilt.com/millionpillowcases for free pillowcase patterns and a map of special events and participating BERNINA stores.

Keep track of the success of the challenge by watching the counter go up and up! We're three weeks into 2010, with over 9000 pillowcases donated - we need to do better than that to make the 1 million goal! Next time you're at your sewing machine, how about stitching together a pillowcase or two?

Congratulations to Linda St. Andre, winner of our 2009 Holiday Blog Contest! We'll be sending her a boxful of holiday goodies to give her a head start on her 2010 holiday stitching. Thank you to everyone that participated - what a grand collection of wonderful holiday ideas! I'm ready to start stitching!

Check out all of the entries (comments) at our Holiday Contest 2009 blog, and see photos of many of the great projects at our flickr site - Blog Holiday Contest 2009 Group. Below is a photo from EllieKiwi, showing her beautiful Santa Bags. Wouldn't you like to find one of these waiting for you on Christmas morning?

A big THANK YOU to our contest sponsors: BERNINA of America, Inc., OESD/embroideryonline.com, Brewer Sewing & Quilting Supplies, and Benartex fabrics.

You've spent precious time and energy creating handmade gifts and decorations for the holidays - now it's time to show off and share photos of your creations with other like-minded folks!

Why should the recipient be the only one to see the results of all that hard work? And those wonderful holiday decorations you spent hours and hours making, working into the wee hours of the morning - why should your family and friends be the only ones to see them? You know all your sewing friends at berninaUSAblog.com will appreciate all the effort you put into them, even if the giftees and guests don't.

Write a description of your favorite holiday project in the comments section, then post a photo on the contest photostream at http://www.flickr.com/groups/1305455@N23/pool/ (optional). While you're there, check out all the super projects from our other blog readers, and get inspired for next year's holiday season!

To give you a head start on next year's holiday sewing, the prize is a boxful of holiday goodies chosen from Jo's stash of books, patterns, blanks, fabric, thread - from BERNINA of America, OESD, Brewer, and Benartex.

Contest ends January 15, 2010. We'll pull a name out of the hat on January 16th, 2010.  Sorry - the prize can only be shipped to an address in the USA, but we hope our out-of-country friends will share their holiday ideas with us anyway.

Alex Anderson, co-host of TheQuiltShow.com, will be visiting three cities this weekend: Charlotte, NC on Nov 7; Omaha (LaVista), NE on Nov 8; and Kansas City (Overland Park) KS on Nov 9. To get your tickets and for more information, contact BERNINA stores in these areas.

Join Alex as she tells of her quilting journey. From an accidental brush with quilting in college, to Host of "Simply Quilts" on HGTV, to internet pioneer with The Quilt Show, Alex tells about her love of quilting and her mission to bring people into their own path of discovery.

Alex brings a virtual trunk show so you will see her first quilt, her first published quilt, her grand prize winner and many more! You will ooh and aah but mostly you will laugh as she tells the stories of the quilts.

The fun is from 10:00 am to 2:00 pm. Meet Alex, enjoy a continental breakfast, watch a demonstration, shop for books and patterns and bring your camera to get a picture.

For the first time, quilts are being seen in Times Square. Dale Riehl, of The City Quilter, a BERNINA store in Manhattan's Chelsea District, thought we would like to know.

The City Quilter arranged with Panasonic to provide free time on its 28 foot by 38 foot Astrovision screen, high above Times Square, to promote our "MADE IN NEW YORK: City Quilting" Exhibition, taking place just a few blocks away at the Williams Club. We created the 15 second spot that runs every 7 1/2 minutes. It premiered at 7 am on Saturday, October 3, and runs 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, through the end of the exhibition on November 14.

Naturally, we are very pleased to be responsible for bringing quilts to Times Square, and to the thousands of people who visit every day.

These are photos I took a few nights ago. You'll see "Wildlife" by Ellen Highsmith Silver and Amy Ronis' "Kitschin' Jane." Text appears superimposed over "Wildlife" and a third quilt, "Green Piece" by Teri Scaduto, providing details on the 60 quilt exhibition's location and hours. If you're in NYC, come take a look!