Stars and Stripes

Being a sewist, sewer, seamstress myself, I cherish the thought that in the very beginning of what would become the United States of America a person with that talent of stitching cloth together was an important part of history.

Of course, almost everyone of us has studied or read of Betsy Ross, the Philadelphian seamstress who was asked by George Washington to make a flag for the Continental Congress prior to the start of the Revolutionary War.

As legend goes, Washington came into Ross’s upholstery shop with a design for the flag. His design featured 13 six-sided stars along with 13 stripes of red and white representing the united colonies.

Ross quickly took a piece of paper and snipped a five-sided star to show Washington. He agreed it was a better design. Ross’s flag has been revised 27 times with our current flag with 50 stars being the longest lasting one, 55 years.

100 years ago this coming Tuesday, June 14th, President Woodrow Wilson signed a proclamation to officially make June 14th, Flag Day. June 14th is also the day that the Continental Congress established our Army in 1775.

Our current 50 star flag was designed in 1958 by an unlikely 17- year-old high school student who got a B- for his project. Young Robert Heft had an interest in politics way back then. With talks that the United States would soon admit the territories of Alaska and Hawaii into statehood, Heft decided, as a high school project, to design a flag that would include stars 49 and 50. He spent 12 hours one weekend sewing the stars in a design that would be alternating six rows of five stars and five rows of four stars making it aesthetically pleasing to the eye.

Celebrate this Flag Day, June 14th, by flying your Stars and Stripes.

“Oh, say can you see…”