QUILT INDEX RECORD

12-8-1071

Who documented this quilt?

Michigan Quilt Project; Michigan State University Museum Collection

Where are the records for this quilt housed?

Michigan State University Museum

Michigan Quilt Project Number:

01.0250

If this quilt is owned by a museum, enter the accession number:

2001:160.9

Object label:

Sunbonnets
Maker unknown
Possibly made in Pennsylvania
c1912-1922
Deborah Harding Redwork Collection, Michigan State University Museum, #2001:160.9

Essay:

Sunbonnet girls, characterized by the shape of their large, obscuring bonnets, populate this quilt. The girls are seen at work and play in blocks marking the day, the month, and the season and the scenes are adapted from illustrations by Bernhart Wall, whose work appeared on postcards and in children's schoolbooks. Wall's figures can be identified by a distinctive flounce on the girls' bonnets near the back of the neck. Wall produced days-of-the-week and months-of-the-year card series for Ullman Manufacturing Company in 1905 and in 1907 his designs were featured in the book Little Susie Sunbonnet and How Her Year Was Spent, A Story for Little Tots by Uncle Milton.

By Mary Worrall from Redwork: A Textile Tradition in America, exhibit.

Owner's name for the quilt:

Sunbonnets

Names for quilt's pattern in common use:

Redwork. Sunbonnets, animals, plants, birds, flowers.

If you are the quilt owner, how did you acquire this quilt?

Purchased the quilt

Where the quilt was made, country:

United States

Time period:

1901-1929

When was the quilt started?

1912

When was the quilt finished?

1922

Quilt is presently used as:

Museum collection

Quiltmaker's country:

United States

This is a:

Finished quilt

How wide is the quilt?

71"

How long is the quilt?

71"

Shape of edge:

Straight

Quilt's condition:

Very good/almost new

Type of inscription:

Message

What is inscribed on the quilt?

Some of the blocks are inscribed with months or seasons

Number of quilt blocks:

49

Size of quilt blocks:

5 1/2" x 5 1/2"

Arrangement of quilt blocks:

Straight

Spacing of quilt blocks:

Separated by plain sashing

Sashing width:

2 3/4"

Number of borders:

2

Describe the borders:

Inner, 2 5/8"; Outer, 4"

Fiber types used to make the quilt top:

Cotton

Piecing techniques used to make the quilt top:

Hand Piecing

Materials used to make the back:

Cotton

Number of pieces of fabric in the quilt back:

1

How is the binding made?

Edges turned in/ no separate binding

What kind of filling is used in the quilt?

Cotton

How are the layers held together?

Hand quilting

Number of quilting stitches per inch, place 1:

8

Number of quilting stitches per inch, place 2:

7

Quilting designs used, overall motifs:

Grid/crosshatch

Describe the quilting designs used:

Rope

Commercial name of the pattern for the top:

Probably traded from commercial designs by Bernhardt Wall

Related items such as diaries, obituaries, wills, household inventories, or pictures of the quiltmaker:

Deborah Harding, Red and White: American Redwork Quilts and Patterns, Rizzoli, 2000 p 110-113.

Source of the information on this quilt:

Museum employee

Ownership of this quilt is:

Public- Michigan State University Museum

Quilt owner's name:

Michigan State University Museum

Quilt owner's city:

East Lansing

Quilt owner's county:

Ingham

Quilt owner's state:

Michigan (MI)

How was this quilt acquired?

Purchase

Tell the story of how the quilt was obtained:

2001, Deborah Harding, this quilt was found in Pennsylvania

Access and copyright information:

Restricted

Copyright holder:

Michigan State University Museum