flags, colds, me avoiding washing the dishes...

[thanate]

We have been historic:



This is a pair of stripes from the reproduction Star Spangled Banner that the Maryland Historical Society is working on. For any of you who are local and interested, there's a second "public stitching day" on Sunday, though you have to sign up for timed-entry tickets to take a single stitch. (I got permission to take an extra one for the Megatherium, as I was polite & knew what I was doing.) They're also planning on a first raising of the finished flag at Ft McHenry on September 14, barring weather, of course. (This is a such a huge flag that even the modern materials one has very specific wind speeds at which they'll put it up; too calm and it's too heavy to flap at all, and if the wind is too strong they risk pulling up the flag pole by the roots.)

Here's a bit of scale:


Meanwhile, grauwulf, who is used to having an immune system that beats things over the head in a day or two, came home with a bad cold that he's processing on the week or two sort of time frame that ordinary mortals generally use. (Hence why he didn't come with us to stitch historically.) And now the baby and I have slightly more stuffy noses than usual; we are hoping for mightiness of mommy-immune system on my part, and not having a plague-dispersing baby this weekend when all and sundry people coming to the memorial service thing are looking forward to getting to meet her. Um. Perhaps I should go eat something more healthy.

Comments

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

The scale of flags of that era was one of the startling things about the Betsy Ross bio I read. Very cool.

[queenoftheskies.livejournal.com]

Wow! That is so cool.

Lovely picture of you and the little one. :)

[thanate.livejournal.com]

Apparently this particular one was some kind of mega commission on the part of the Ft McHenry commander and possibly set records? I forget the details, but they are all very excited about it at the fort. I also remember the original from where it used to hang in the American History Museum (smithsonian/DC, not the NYC one) when I was a kid, across from 3 stories of tall balcony with the giant pendulum in front of it. They re-conserved it when the museum was under renovations, but I haven't been back since to see what's happened with it.