The last lost quilt

Mom liked Sunbonnet Sue quilts.  These are appliquéd doll figures, generally popularized by Kate Greenaway in the late 19^th and early 20^th century.  Sue’s round figure and bonnet encompassed head became a popular redwork figure, too, together with equally rolly overall boys.  There are so many Sunbonnet Sue and Overall Boy variations that a Death of Sunbonnet Sue movement had patterns featuring her bizarre death.  Entered in a Kansas show, they were hung face to the wall in protest.  They were a part of an exhibition at the Regan Library, but removed after protest.

Mom’s earliest Sunbonnet Sue wasn’t Greenaway’s round little cherub, but a slightly more mature little girl with a watering can.   This quilt came out of the metal box and Jan attributes it to mom because of the motif, which we came to know well in her later quilts, and all the embroidery detail defining the little girl.

Mom went on to make many, many Sunbonnet Sue’s.  But, these young ladies had slender waists and pantaloons and embroidery detail of watering cans and flowers.  They remind me of the parasol ladies, another variation of appliqué dolls.  I’ve not located a watering can teenage Sunbonnet Sue pattern on the internet, but she existed once, in my mother’s pattern book.  Remember Dick and Jane, Down the River Road?  It was a large cardboard bound primer we used in first grade.  For reading and math.  Mom used mine to file all her clipped out patterns and her tiny waisted Sunbonnet Sue resided there for years.

She made a yellow Sunbonnet Sue for my friend Carol when Carol was married.  Mom made a Sunbonnet Sue for each of her granddaughters.

Beth’s is purple,

Shelly’s is green. 

Michelle’s is blue.  It's in Atlanta, and I don't have a picture of it.

Mom left a set of blocks in a box.  Enough for a quilt for another granddaughter.  Always prepared.