Happy 250th Birthday USA 🇺🇸

What a day to celebrate our country! Can you believe the USA has kept up the “experiment” for the past 250 years? It is the home of the free, because of the brave!

Fifty years ago (I can’t believe it’s been that long), it was a big deal for the 200th anniversary of our nation’s birth—1776 to 1976! In commemoration, at the tender age of 14 years old and going into the 8th grade, I wanted to make a quilt, Betsy Ross style. I told my mom about my grand plan to create a quilt, though she knew she probably couldn’t help me in the sewing department and would have to come up with a plan she could help with.

I know she had a simple White (brand name) sewing machine to make curtains and hem clothes, but that pretty much sums up the machine’s lifespan. It never saw one quilt come through the throat plate, though I begged her to "show me how’ to quilt that year.

Oh, I have to say she really tried to figure out how to teach me, and even purchased a quilt book during that iconic year of 1976. I never saw it then, but when I cleaned out her house decades later, I found it among her sewing things. You see, she was afraid of math. I’m guessing that when she opened the book, she knew in an instant she could never teach me, since there were fractions and other terminology that scared her way too much to figure out how to teach a young teenage girl.

Never fear, though; she was a prolific crocheter. Instead of teaching me to make a quilt, she taught me how to crochet. You have to be a good counter and keep tabs of the rows, and my mom could do that beautifully.

My first crocheted “blanket” was a Betsy Ross-style flag. It was red, white, and blue. Perfect! I then cut out 13 white felt stars representing the 13 colonies and glued them onto the blue crocheted piece.

Once I finished crocheting the small flag, I wrote a report on Betsy Ross. Not only did I get an A+ on the report, but my beloved crocheted Betsy Ross-inspired flag was also hung in the display case near the school’s offices for the rest of the school year.

Although I haven’t created a commemorative piece for America’s 250th birthday, I realize now that perhaps I already did—just 50 years ago. That little crocheted flag represented far more than a school project. It marked the beginning of a lifetime of creating with my hands, thanks to a mom who, after all my begging, wasn’t afraid to say, “I don’t know how…but let’s figure out what I can teach you.”

Looking back, I’m grateful she taught me to crochet instead of worrying about what she couldn’t teach me. Quilting would come later, but the love of making something from nothing began with her.

Cheers to 250 years of American ingenuity, creativity, and perseverance—and to the people who pass those gifts from one generation to the next. I'm one lucky gal to have that experience.

Happy Birthday, USA! 🇺🇸

Terri