An Amazing quilt

I lecture on Sunbonnet Sue history.  My lecture follows the 20th century and the evolution of Sunbonnet Sue in quilts.  I love finding quilts that I can show in my lecture that back up the information that I present.

I just found a quilt that is making me change what I lecture.  My history information goes through each decade of the 1900s talking about how quilters made sunbonnet sue quilts:

• 1900s - redwork
• 1910 - Crazy quilts
• 1920 - the beginning of appliques Sunbonnet Sue quilts
• 1930s - the decade of amazing Sunbonnet sue quilt with most done on plain backgrounds
• 1940s - Patterns of Sue change, but very similar to the 1930s
• 1950s - Sunbonnet Sue gets busy on tea towels - days of the week, more embroidery
• 1960 - Many different patterns emerge
• 1970 - Sue  become Holly Hobby
• 1980 - Sue starts making a statement/political quilts/bad sue quilts
• 1990 - Pieced backgrounds are beginning
• etc...

Anyway, I found this amazing 1930s quilt from the North Western part of the United states that shows that some quilts in the 1930s and 1940 did have  pieced backgrounds.  The quilt I found has 24 different blocks and each one has an amazing pieced and then embroidered background.  Here is one of the blocks:

The background is pieced.  The sue is appliqued in one piece.  It is a similar pattern to the "Hurry up Sue" pattern found on the Sunbonnetsue.com website.

But the time spent doing the embroidery, is incredible.  Each Sue is different.  Each background is different.  I'm working on getting everything scanned and patterns made.  This quilt is too beautiful not to share!

Kim Cronin
Sunbonnetsue.com