Sunbonnet Sue vs Henry

Sr. Mary asked me what a Sunbonnet Sue was. Here's a couple. Sorry for the lousy lighting--I took them just now on the bed in the guest room and didn't bother to stage them better. But it gives an idea at least.

Two girls on my gift list this year, Maeve and my niece Delaney, are receiving this style of Sue. The little girl with the big bonnet, the child proportions. I'm using 30s era prints when I can--I got a bag of feedsack scraps at an antique mall last month (SCORE) and have several waiting in the wings to create. The two big Sues here are from an exchange I participated in last summer--I didn't make them, just added to them (the crocheted lace, the little leaves cut from an old handkerchief). The two smaller orange-sherbet colored Sues are from a kit. They came ready to applique, which I promptly did, adding the tatting and, for one, the fence and the yo-yo flowers (yes, those scrunchy things are called yo-yos).

The older girls (Sophia and my nieces Kennedy and Maci) are not getting this style of Sue, but of Sue's older sister, sometimes referred to as Parasol Girl or Colonial Lady or Southern Belle (depending on the quilter and the era). I broke down and purchased a book that has a very nice pattern for a Parasol Girl, and also one where she puts the parasol down and sits on a swing! I love it.

And, because I am lazy and know this (although less than I once was), I went on ebay to see if I could find any other Sues or Parasols. I like to make a quilt that doesn't look like I made each and every element the same. I like the eye to move. And so using other women's Sues as a backdrop for my gussying-up is perfect. Especially those Colonial Ladies, which can get pretty intricate. I am impatient with applique. I mean, there's a lot to do on these, even before you start the embroidery:

This one is not mine, fyi, but found online.

Well, I found a whole quilt top, hand appliqued in appropriate fabrics. It was a little simpler than this one above here, but starting with a background I can make things fancy. There were 12 blocks and I paid just over $1 a block. I figured it was worth a shot.

Well, it was a shot in the dark. You never know. It is in very good condition, perhaps new. Freshly laundered, the blocks were machine stitched to a sashing border and were easy to separate (since I would intersperse them with my own blocks in the final productions). But then I took a closer look at them. The parasols were an MC Escher delight--somehow both in front and in back of the lady. But this wonder of physics wasn't as dismaying as the necks on these girls, which, I must say in my defense, did not show up in the photographs online. The never-saw-the-sun Southern Belle skin, with the flash on, disappeared into the background. Henry Rollins doesn't have a neck like this.
I guess I should have noticed where the parasol handle begins and ends, but I was looking at the fabric and the stitching and, alas, missed this detail. And then, after the neck? Look at the shoulders. And this Lady was an average example. Many of them had even more, well, chiseled, features. And the hats are disturbing. They indicate no face (as is typical of Sunbonnet Sues and Ladies) but the width of the bonnet isn't enough. So the neck here is as long as the Lady's torso. Like some sort of strange alpaca hybrid.

So I'm going to give them a pass. I looked over the fabric--it's all good-quality cotton in appropriate colors and prints for a vintage-looking quilt. But it's just not quite what I want if I have to start over from scratch. Plus, which the seller failed to mention, the blocks are rectangular, about 17 x 14 inches. Not as useful as I'd like them to be.

Henry Rollins, on the other hand....
Ok, time to go pick up Maeve and start over on the Parasol Ladies. And maybe dig out my old Black Flag albums.