Modern Quilts with Historical Roots in the English Countryside by Deborah McGuire.

Post Graduate Quilt Researcher

Quilt Magazine Columnist

Longarm Quilter

Modern Traditionalist Quilter

My latest #notesonquiltingncolumn for #thequiltermagazine explores the idea of the quilt as soft power. Soft Power is the name for the gentle powerful diplomacy that happens quietly just off stage, and I suggest that quilters are expert in this crucial art. Every wrap of a warm quilt around a scared child, tucked around elderly knees, kindly gifted to a friend, every charity block, every donated fundraiser, every uplifting quilty zoom call is an act of soft power. These moments make impacts on the arc of another’s life for good and leave an indelible mark, usually a fabric/quilt shaped one. Far from being insignificant or irrelevant these everyday acts are the glue that holds societies together at tough times. You quilters are the good eggs 🥚❤️ #debmcguirewrites #imintheguild #qgbiregion7 #quilthistory #quiltmagazine #thequiltersguild Such a beautiful customer quilt on my frame in the sunshine last week. As a longarm quilter you get a unique peek into others quilting worlds. It’s been a long winter at the end of a hard year but judging from the elegance of the quilts on my frame lately, quilters have risen to the challenges and found beauty in the barren. After scorched earth, new growth blossoms, resilience always wins in the end, I’m optimistic for a beautiful summer of making ahead for us all. #plainstitchlongarm #gammillquilting #longarmquiltinguk This picture of my #hawickquilt encapsulates what I really love about a finished quilt - its texture. It’s been interesting reading @zakfoster.quilts and @heidi.parkes advocating for a reevaluation of how we photograph and show quilts. I’ve often found the convention of showing quilts on walls a bit bare, devoid of warmth. For a few years now my experience of seeing my own quilts displayed on stark white walls under bright lights has left me a bit cold. In stating that quilts have artistic merit does that mean that they have to behave like pictures? When we try and make them flat, hang straight, be stiff, do we emasculate/defeminate(?) them, take away their unique haptic-maternal-material strength to be items of comfort, to convey softness as power. Lots to muse in this line of thought? Did we accidentally negate what is uniquely good about quilts in order to be accepted as ‘art’? Are we selling out strengths in traditional femininity to play in masculine fields? Can modem quilters take back the roots of why quilts have power by showing that post-modern quilts don’t have to play by the conventions imposed by art? Maybe consider all these weighty problems curled up under a cosy soft quilt - the answer to most of life’s gnarly problems can be found there. #quiltsasart ##hawickquilt #quiltstudy #postgraduatelife #handquiltingasmeditation #folkskills #handquilted #scottishquilt #modernvernacularquilt #britishvernacularquilt #britishquilts #britishquilter #quilthistory #debmcguirequilts #quiltmakers #quiltstories #thequiltersguild #imintheguild #qgbiregion7 #modernbritishquilt #modernwholeclothquilt #libertyfabric #freezerpaperapplique #quiltsofinstagram #wholeclothquilt #antiquequilt I love #igquiltfest, I’ve been participating for years ( since Flickr 😜). The kick off is Introductions, and so Hi 🙋‍♀️ this is me (2020 version, slightly unkempt and somewhat hysterical looking, but that’s us all these days, no?!) , yes I do quilt past my bedtime 🥱 but I’m an early bird so I love to be asleep really early! Blossom and blue skies outside my longarm studio, yesterday I was quilting with the doors open again and that has felt like a looong time coming. #plainstitchlongarm #springiscoming🌸 #blossomtree #longarmquilting On St David’s Day it seems timely that I’m about to start quilting my #dadadeiladuquilt a deconstructed #modernwelshquilt . I made this quilt last February, inspired by the fantastic #patternbox pattern by #sandielush for @thequiltersguild. Somehow it never really made it to the grid, it coincided with these weeks last year when everything went weird. It’s had a chequered past, I changed the backing and the wadding twice requiring it to be unbasted and rebasted😬looking at the baggy state of the basting as it hangs there I’ll be doing it a third time, clearly last March was not a good month for considered decision making. I’m hoping that this March bodes better. The quilting pattern is from #thequiltersguildshop #celticfringe pattern and I’m planning to hand quilt it in either red or navy thread, still musing that, to make the quilting motifs pop. I decided to appliqué some of the motifs too to really show them off. I have a few more motifs I made then changed my mind about last year, I’ll probably revisit them, it might need a few more? The centre is made from reclaimed fabric pieces from @jen_jones_welsh_quilts and modern printed linens from @colettemoscrop, the wadding is bouncy wool and the tan background is a brushed cotton to give that warm sense of old wool Welsh quilts without the weight that much affordable modern wool fabric has ( I started out with a length of wool that ended up waaay too thick to work with, that wool fabric has ended up in my #hawickquilt so nothing wasted!) #patchworkobsession #modernwelshquilts #vintagequilt #modernquilt #handquilting #welshquilts #colettemoscroptextiles @colettemoscrop #sandielush #welshquilting #imintheguild #modernvernacularquilt #dadadeiladuquilt #debmcguirequilts #stdavidsday What a glorious day, sunshine☀️, daffodils, long dog walk through the woods, fun making pretzels 🥨 with my littley for a school German project about festivals. Anyone else feel like they’ve come back to life after a long dark hibernation? Isn’t it wonderful 🎈 #springissprung #pretzels #cookingwithkids #sundayfunday I so enjoyed reading the latest @quiltfolk magazine edition from Connecticut. I lived in Bridgeport 21 years ago for a work placement, around the corner (although I didn’t know it at the time) from @dsquilts studio. In a weird twist of serendipity, reading a magazine article about Denyse’s quilts at JFK airport was how I became a quilter (I talk about this strange fate twist in my @greatbritishquilter podcast episode 3) if you like a weird quilty coincidence story. It was a blast to sit in the spring sunshine looking out on my barn at my now home here in the Chiltern Hills in the UK (immortalised in this quilt #1820sappliquequilt ) but looking back at the gorgeous pictures in this magazine of my old view of the beautiful Long Island Sound with quilter @katespain . #quiltmagazine #debmcguirequilts I (almost*) finished hand quilting my #lilliesleafquilt . Now for the binding for which I have a lovely plan involving British vernacular #knifeedgebinding crossed with some gorgeous Scottish wool - in another old/new combo for this modern historical quilt.