SUNBONNET SUE QUILT

When I was a young girl growing up in the Texas Panhandle I remember a very special quilt that Mother had. It was called a Sunbonnet Sue quilt and I loved playing with it. I am not sure where the quilt came from but some distant memory seems to tell me that my quilt-making great-grandmother helped Mother make the Sunbonnet Sue quilt when Mother was a young girl.

I enjoyed that quilt because each of the twelve large squares was covered with a girl in a floral skirt and sun bonnet in a contrasting fabric. It was made of old 1920s or 1930s-era fabric. Each Sunbonnet Sue was a different color and each one seemed to have a different personality.

One of my favorite things to do on a hot summer afternoon was to take the Sunbonnet Sue quilt out into the shade on the front lawn and play dolls on it. The thought of that makes me cringe now that I am making my own quilts, but Mother did not seem to mind. I spent many happy hours talking to my dolls and the different Sunbonnet Sues on the quilt.

Eventually the Sunbonnet Sue quilt became frayed and the dresses began to detach from the quilt. Mother finally packed it away into her linen closet and my sister recently retrieved it to see if she could find someone to repair the fragile and fraying fabric. I am afraid there is not much hope for the quilt but a huge array of past playtime memories spilled out onto the floor as we opened up the quilt and I recognized it as Mother's Sunbonnet Sue quilt.