Originally Posted by IowaStitcher

I did a program about Sue for my local small guild and did some research on her history. Here is a part of the dialog with some of the research I used which tells you a little about how "Bad Sue" and killing off Sue got started.

"Sue was always the perfect stereotypical female- she was never dirty, aggressive or disagreeable. A quilt group in Texas turned this around when making a quilt for one of their members who had been hinting for a long time about wanting a Sunbonnet Sue quilt. For her 40th birthday, group members each made a block and wrapped them individually as birthday presents. As they were opened one by one, Sweet Sue had become Scandalous Sue.

While the members of this group did this all in fun, an analysis of this quilt in the book Feminist Messages - Coding in Women’s Folk Culture by Joan Radner suggests that women are showing rebellion against traditional women’s roles and norms and using this staple of the quilt world to express this need for change. Others have expressed dislike for Sue because she is too simple, boring and repetitive. Some feel she is too cute, trite and corny for their tastes and find her out of date, absorbed in domesticity in a way worrisome to many modern American women.
Finally a group in Kansas which included nationally known quilter Barbara Brackman were fed up with seeing these quilts. It was shortly after the Jonestown massacre in Guyana and one of the members said she would like to see Sue drink some of that purple koolaid. They decided to strike a blow against cute and drew a sketch of Sue in her stereotypical pose , hands rigidly by her side and and drew an arrow in her back. Showing it to other friends, the group made blocks for a 20 block quilt, appropriately set together with black and blue fabrics, depicting the demise of Sunbonnet Sue. “The Sun Sets on Sunbonnet Sue” got varying reactions from hilariously funny to shock and outrage. At the Sunflower State Expo in Topeka that year, the judges awarded the quilt second prize in its class (one of 2 entries) but the head of the textile exhibits confiscated the ribbon and refused to display the quilt which she characterized as “sick”. This display did lead to “Alive and Free, a book of Sue quilt patterns showing her engaging in many modern activities such as driving a car or hot air ballooning and other adventurous activities"