Sunbonnet Sue 1930's
My grandmother, Ella Mae Shirey Nichelson, was a quilter. When I was born my parents were living with my maternal grandparents. Grandmother immediately began making my special quilt and although it was all hand pieced and hand quilted, it was ready by Christmas. I grew up with this quilt and always knew that someday I would be making quilts for my grandchildren.
The quilt is crib size and contains 12 Sunbonnet Sue blocks done in the style that became popular in the late 1920's. A different print was used for each dress and solid matching fabrics were used for the bonnets, sleeves and shoes. She used black embroidery floss and attached each with the buttonhole stitch with stem stitching on the sleeve and bonnet for details. The very pale pink sashing has faded with age and is barely noticeable on the photo. She outlined the figures and then used an all-over quilting design in squares on point. The batting is cotton and the quilt is very thin.
Grandmother was 53 years old when she made this quilt, so when I was 53 years old I decided to make the matching quilt. I had researched the Sunbonnet Sue origins and found a lot of early designs. Among them was this one and it has a matching Overall Sam. Using Grandmother's color scheme I made matching blocks of the boys facing the opposite direction. The only change was that I used grey where she had used lavender. I sashed mine in light blue. Since Grandmother used all floral prints on the girls; I used all stripes on the boys. At this time I hand embroidered names on both quilts to represent those of children born in the 1930's. Dad's full name was Raymond Michael Thomas Suchocki. When I was born my parents were expecting a boy--they planned to have a girl later. I ended up an only child with Rae as my middle name, but they saved the name they had chosen for me just in case they got a boy later. The name was Thomas Michael so I call my quilt, "Tommy's Quilt." Shown here is the "Ronnie" block.(It isn't quilted yet!)
Below is a photo of my grandmother, Ella Mae Shirey Nichelson, taken shortly before her marriage in 1906. She was 22 years old.
