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PlainStitch Deb

PlainStitch Deb

A Modern British Quilt History

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Category: My Quilts

Quilt Stories

My Quilts, Quilt History

A Scant History of Patchwork & Quilting in The British Isles

Dec 23, 2020Dec 23, 2020 Deborah McGuire

A Scant History of Patchwork and Quilting in The British Isles.

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My Quilts

The Hudson Quilt Coat

Dec 2, 2020Dec 23, 2020 Deborah McGuire

I made a quilt coat. I've always wanted one, for years and years, but finally the circles of fashion, need and time to make overlapped. Here in the UK we have been in a 4 week lockdown to suppress the second wave of Covid. In the first lockdown, I distracted myself from the fresh panic… Continue reading The Hudson Quilt Coat

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My Quilts

Waste Not Want Not Quilt

Nov 14, 2020Dec 4, 2020 Deborah McGuire

At its heart, making a quilt feels like the ultimate textile tribute, taking fabric and remaking it into a new, beautiful, durable and superbly practical item. Quilts last a really long time, they are not a fast fashion item, they are passed through generations and cherished and mended. But, in a world where overconsumption is… Continue reading Waste Not Want Not Quilt

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My Quilts

The Rosemaling Quilt

Oct 17, 2020Dec 2, 2020 Deborah McGuire

I lived in the US in 2000 and my favourite abiding memory of that time was weekends spent in Vermont, surrounded by snowy forested mountains, in front of a toasty crackling fire in a little wooden cabin with waist height snow drifts all around.  I love being surrounded by snow, and I love feeling off… Continue reading The Rosemaling Quilt

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My Quilts

The Daisy Quilted England Wholecloth

Aug 31, 2020Nov 17, 2020 Deborah McGuire

The history of British quilting is incomplete, because by the time that its value as a heritage skill was properly recognised regional quilting practice was no longer widespread. The parts of the country that still had a tradition to research at the start of the 20th Century (the North Country and Wales) are often thought… Continue reading The Daisy Quilted England Wholecloth

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My Quilts, Quilt History

The Georgian Quilted Petticoat Project

Aug 7, 2020Nov 17, 2020 Deborah McGuire

I used to dream about what i'd do if I suddenly didn't have to do everything-else-I-have-to-do. When our lives were a constant dull hum of the front door slamming and car keys clanging as I whipped in and out of the house taking kids here, rushing to catch a train, running out to the longarm… Continue reading The Georgian Quilted Petticoat Project

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My Quilts

Hope Blooming Quilt

Apr 17, 2020Nov 17, 2020 Deborah McGuire

  Across the globe an unprecedented health event is unfolding and along with millions of others I have been struggling to process the enormity and to figure out how best to Be in this strange new world. My kids are at home and my husband is cloistered away down the long corridor taking muffled work… Continue reading Hope Blooming Quilt

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My Quilts

The Misses Barron Quilt – Part 2.

Mar 1, 2020Nov 17, 2020 Deborah McGuire

Back in the dog days of last summer I embarked on a palma non sine pulvere - a project of great reward in exchange for great effort - I decided to hand quilt a king sized North Country wholecloth quilt. I've always been a hand quilter ( see my previous post for how and why… Continue reading The Misses Barron Quilt – Part 2.

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My Quilts

The Maps of Childhood Quilt

Feb 22, 2020Nov 17, 2020 Deborah McGuire

I live in the heart of the British countryside in an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty, in the south of England at the foot of the Chiltern Hills. This chalk bluff rises from a flat plain and forms an ancient spine stretching across the country from Bath to Norfolk. It was an ancient bye-way, with… Continue reading The Maps of Childhood Quilt

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My Quilts

PlainStitch. What’s in a name?

Feb 7, 2020Nov 17, 2020 Deborah McGuire

Making a quilt, however complex, is essentially just a lot of very simple running stitches. This paradox lies at the heart of why I love the process of making a quilt. This simple stitch means that patchwork and quilting are skills completely accessible to anyone who can make a simple stitch with a needle and… Continue reading PlainStitch. What’s in a name?

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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

Hello!

My Quilts

  • A Scant History of Patchwork & Quilting in The British Isles
  • The Hudson Quilt Coat
  • Waste Not Want Not Quilt
  • The Rosemaling Quilt
  • The Daisy Quilted England Wholecloth
  • The Georgian Quilted Petticoat Project
  • Hope Blooming Quilt
  • The Misses Barron Quilt – Part 2.
  • The Maps of Childhood Quilt
  • PlainStitch. What’s in a name?
  • Modern Notes On Quilting
  • The Wendover Remembers Quilt

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Read My Column – Modern Notes on Quilting – The Quilter Magazine

Hear My Interview for The Great British Quilter Podcast

https://www.sarahashfordstudio.com/podcast

Buy the Bertha Mitchell Pattern for The Quilters’ Guild

I’m a Member of The British Quilt Study Group

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