Deborah McGuire – Historian, Writer & Hand Quilter.

Deborah McGuire is an historian, writer, teacher and hand quilter.

Her work presents the quilt as an emotional object, exploring its role in domestic history, women’s history, material culture and regional histories.

Completed in 2021, Deborah’s Masters by Research Dissertation, titled ‘”Remember Me”. Domestic Textiles in Britain 1790-1890: Memory, Identity & Emotion’, uses the framework of the lifecycle to uncover the role of the quilt as an object of emotional communication throughout life.

Deb’s new 2022 PhD research project concerns itself with journeys through both temporal and geographical space, presenting the quilt as a flexible and meaning-full vessel which did emotional work over long periods as it travelled through the spaces and places of the long nineteenth century. Unfolding the focus outwards from the family, this study explores overlapping arenas; the smaller more intimate sphere of the body, senses and souls of makers, and wider spheres recording how quilts lived on through remembered afterlives, in alternative domesticities, reinforcing regionalities, and doing the work of nationhood. 

This thesis, titled ‘Emotional Journeys. The British Quilt in Space and Time 1780-1920’, is supervised by Professor Joanne Begiato and Dr Sally Holloway at Oxford Brookes University, School of History, Philosophy & Culture. See Published Work, Press & Media for latest work.

Deb is also a traditional handquilter, sewing British vernacular inspired modern new work on an extant Welsh quilt frame from 1900. Deb is a passionate advocate of the tradition of framed handquilting. Deb taught quilt making and now works as a mentor for artists and makers. You can read about her own quilt practice here and explore the name PlainStitch here.

Deb contributes to magazines, podcasts, radio shows and YouTube, and writes a quarterly column for The Quilter Magazine called ‘Modern Notes on Quilting’, reflecting on the quilting community today through the lens of the traditions of the British quilting past.

Deborah is an appointed Advisor to The Quilt Collection for The Quilters’ Guild of the British Isles and offers mentorship through the Arts Council for traditional quilt making methods to artists and craftspeople.

Deb originally trained and worked as an international FMCG marketeer, and has since been an entrepreneurial pattern designer, patchwork and quilting teacher, long arm quilter, and quilt shop owner, company director, museum advisor and PhD candidate. 

Deb is a member of the AQSG American and BQSG British Quilt Study Groups.

Contact: deb@plainstitch.co.uk or 19066614@brookes.ac.uk.