Not Everybody Loves Sunbonnet Sue

by Steffani McChesney

As any quilter will tell you, one of the most popular and enduring quilt blocks for the last 100 or so years has been Sunbonnet Sue. The original images appeared as illustrations in magazines, children’s books and newspapers. The cute, cuddly image spawned a consort named Overall Bill. Every Jill needs her Jack or Barbi, her Ken. In fact, the first documented Sunbonnet Sue pattern featured both Sue and Bill and was published in the Ladies Art Company catalog between 1900 and 1015. The pattern could be purchased as stamped blocks or cutting patterns.

Many variations have appeared in the ensuing years. Variations have been designed by some of the most famous quilt designers. Marie Webster designed a Sunbonnet Sue in 1913 followed by Ruby McKim in 1931. Sue was an especially popular pattern during the Great Depression, her sunny and innocent demeanor brightening people’s days during those trying times.

Then disaster struck. Poor Sue ran smack up against the women’s movement in the 1980s. The Seamsters Local #500 of Lawrence, Kansas vented their rage at the state of women’s affairs by killing her off in a group quilt called The Sun Sets on Sunbonnet Sue. The blocks are a historical reflection of the troubled decade. Among twenty blocks depicting her demise, Sue commits suicide at Jonestown by drinking purple Kool-Aid, is killed at the Three Mile Island nuclear disaster, is crushed by a falling Skylab, and is eaten by Jaws. Other, more conventional endings show Sue hit by lightening, tied to railroad tracks, buried alive, and eaten by a giant snake.

For all the assaults, Sue survived and remains ever popular. She has appeared in quilts showing her as a misbehaving enfant terrible blowing up an outhouse, a liberated woman climbing mountains, and having a “bad day” marooned on an island surrounded by sharks. Sue does have fun though. I saw a quilt recently showing her in black lace panties under her little pinafore. The lady who made the block (I wish I could remember who it was so I could give her credit) said that she was Slutty Sue.

There are Sunbonnet Sues from Japan. Sue and Bill have even gone on safari and traveled out west with the cowboys. Arlene Stamper decided to commemorate the 20th century by making a quilt showing Sue down through the years as everyone from Rosie the Riveter to an aerobics fitness fanatic. She calls it The Century Quilt.

So Sunbonnet Sue has been with us for a long time and will be here for another century. Even though people have fun with her, I think, secretly, they really do love her after all.