My Country, 'tis of Thee

When I was in high school a friend's mother gave my friend and me each an embroidery kit.  The kit was a map of the United States and even though this was a few years after Alaska and Hawaii had been admitted to the Union, neither was on the stamped linen.  Anyway, my friend and I stitched away at home and on the beach in Avalon, NJ, but when we went off to college and our adult lives, the little project got packed away and forgotten.
I have been on a mission lately, to try and finish some projects that have languished in my (figurative) workbasket.  (I'm not organized enough to have a real workbasket, so UFO's are in my sewing area, in cabinets in the basement, really in nooks and crannies all over the house.  Don't tell Dave.)  So recently, I dug out the USA map kit and took it with me to my Guild's Quilt As You Like afternoons.

Reader, I finished it!  I was tempted to add Alaska and Hawaii in some way, but I decided to leave it just the way Bucilla manufactured it. (Whenever that was.  There was no copyright date on the direction sheet.)

 

This was before the US Postal Service instituted the two-letter abbreviations for the states, so they appear the old fashioned way with a period.  And each state has a little symbol of its industry or history, too: the Liberty Bell for my home state of Pennsylvania and Edison's light bulb for my adopted state of New Jersey.  (Today, we'd call them icons!)

 

 

I'm going to get another embroidery project out and put it with my hand sewing.  Who knows what other UFOs are just waiting for a few more stitches?