07/02/2026
Starting my Early American Flag cross-stitch just in time for the 4th — thirteen stars in that circle of blue, red and cream thread already twisted up and ready to go. There’s something grounding about counting stitches while you think about how much history sits in this one small pattern.
The design traces back to Betsy Ross, the Philadelphia seamstress credited with sewing the first American flag in 1776. As the story goes, George Washington and two other members of the Continental Congress brought her a rough sketch, and Ross suggested the five-pointed star — cut with a single fold and one snip of the scissors — instead of the six-pointed one they’d drawn. Historians still debate how much of the legend is fact versus 19th-century myth-making, but the Betsy Ross flag, with its circle of thirteen stars, has stayed the enduring symbol of that first flag ever since.
250 years later, still stitching it by hand. Here’s to the ones who came before us with a needle in hand.
