Missouri: Home of Mark Twain, Harry Truman and… The ice cream cone!
As the story goes, it was at the St. Louis World’s Fair in 1904 that the ice cream cone was invented. An ice cream vendor ran out of cups and, thinking quickly, asked a waffle vendor to help by rolling up waffles to hold ice cream. Tada! Ice Cream cones!
Ahh… Mississippi… Home of gracious Southern Hospitality, lovely Magnolia Trees and… Celebrated in the oldest spelling song in the nation. I can not type the name Mississippi without singing the letters in my mind!
Minnesota: Land of 10,000 Lakes is familiar to many of us as the home of Mary Richards in the Mary Tyler Moore Show. That show took place in the Twin Cities: Minneapolis and Saint Paul. But there is so much more to this beautiful state! That nickname of Land of 10,000 Lakes is no joke. Actually there’s way more than that in this beautiful state. I live in California, land of mega drought… 10,000+ lakes sounds very good to me right now! (more…)
Interesting… Wikipedia points out that Michigan is the only state to consist of two peninsulas. The Lower Peninsula, to which the name Michigan was originally applied, is often noted to be shaped like a mitten. The Upper Peninsula (often referred to as “the U.P.”) is separated from the Lower Peninsula by the Straits of Mackinac, a five-mile channel that joins Lake Huron to Lake Michigan. The two peninsulas are connected by the Mackinac Bridge.
The Massachusetts flag has the elegant state seal on the field of white. For a modern take, I interpreted the flag in a minimalist design.
As a young girl of ten, I was told the romantic story of Black-eyed Susan (The Maryland State Flower). While I’ve long forgotten the details, I’ve always remembered to dramatic, romantic essence of the tale. My Maryland research brought it back to me… (All hail the internet!)
Maine, The Pine Tree State, is our northernmost state on the Atlantic seaboard. With the motto, “Dirigo” which means “I Lead” it isn’t surprisiong that the North Star is included on the Maine State seal and its flag.
The fleur-de-lis or fleur-de-lys (plural: fleurs-de-lis) is a stylized lily (in French, fleur means “flower”, and lis means “lily”) used as a decorative design. It may be religious, political, dynastic, artistic, emblematic, or symbolic especially in French heraldry. It is no surprise the emblem found all over the state of Louisiana has its roots in French culture, stemming from the French colonization of the Americas, namely present day Louisiana. Following Hurricane Katrina, the fleur-de-lis has been widely used in New Orleans as a symbol of grassroots support for New Orleans’ recovery. In 2008, Louisiana governor Bobby Jindal signed a bill into law making the fleur-de-lis an official symbol of the state.
Isn’t is appropriate that Kentucky comes up now for our States of Modern block? The AQS Quilt Show in Paducah has just drawn to a close and the quilt world is still humming from all the activity! Classes and Contest Winners, beautiful quilts and spring in Paducah! This is a wonderful week to celebrate the home state of Quilt City USA!
Recently, my sister and brother-in-law moved to Kansas and are building a house near their daughter so I am planning on visiting soon. I’ve been puzzling over how to represent the state til I learned the geographic center of the contiguous United States is located about 2.6 miles northwest of the center of Lebanon, Kansas, just about 12 miles south of the Kansas-Nebraska border. So I have designed our Kansas block with a shining gold square (representing Kansas) in the center of our block to signify the center of the country.