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Deborah McGuire

Deborah McGuire

Historian. Writer. Quilt Maker.

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Category: Notes on Quilting Column

My Column for The Quilter Magazine

Notes on Quilting Column, Quilt History, Quilts

Modern Notes On Quilting

Dec 1, 2019Mar 6, 2021 Deborah McGuire

I’m excited to be writing a new column in this quarters’ The Quilter Magazine* It is out at the start of December, so I wanted to take a moment to share with you my thoughts on the new column. Firstly let me tell you about the name of my column. ‘Modern Notes on Quilting’ is… Continue reading Modern Notes On Quilting

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Many hands. We’ve really enjoyed working on this rug over the last few weeks. We’ve shifted it from room to room as Christmas guests, events and entertainments have waxed and waned. Many hands have contributed, choosing colours, cutting strips and working the pile. Now a last push this weekend to finish the border as my girls also have rug plans and so this won’t be our last! We’ve been using this quiet in between time as life slowly squeezes back in to add to our family rug endeavour. Between work, walks in this landscape and catching up we’ve been recreating the bare tree-line and crisp blue skies and the swirling red kites over the ancient Ridgeway. Just catching up after a week of mostly socialising and catering, but with snatched creative progress in the gaps and crevices of the inbetweentime. I’m gifting myself some quiet crafting between the cooking and socialising over the next couple of weeks. An inherently sociable parallel craft to quilting is rug making which historically sat at the centre of sociable gatherings, but was completed much faster than a quilt in the frame, took up less space in a smaller frame and could be worked on by the whole family. All calm and order up top, full-on party down below 🎉.The push and pull and ying and yang of Christmas week quilting. 🥂✨ Grabbing some quiet moments at the frame. Adding wool for the second pass. Stealing a little look at the texture beneath on the elaborate patchwork. The soft wool and the sateen back of this quilt gives the most delicious texture in the low light in these shortest days of the year. The light is so pale at the moment in these short, dull grey December days, but I’m making slow inroads here and there into the first pass of this beautiful (originally regency) quilt design. Thank you to Bloomsbury Dress and Costume Library @bloomsburyfashion and trailblazing editors @dressing.history and @sarahbendall_dresshistory for the commission to contribute a creative piece to the library Recreative Reflections volume exploring how recreative practice in textiles and women’s history can help us to uncover otherwise unrecorded histories. Something tender and new taking shape. ⭐️What a prize! A precious and beautiful plaque, and a completely overwhelming day. Working with wool as a wadding, 1820s style. ❤️ Hand quilting like it is 1820. I’m starting a new project that has been waiting in the wings for a while. My bespoke, especially long frames, commissioned from James @loosefitfurniture have arrived, and I’ve stocked up on washed fleece from @romneymarshwools which I’m mixing in 3 parts to 1 with my native breeds reclaimed waste wool from @shire_mill to create a ‘recipe’ that seems to reflect the kind of proportions of white wool to brown in old quilts of this period. So far I’m liking the properties, lots of bounce that will hold shape well for the really complex quilting that this reimagining of a regency quilt contains.
Hello

Read about the quilt makers of Swaledale at McGuire, Deborah, ‘Although it smack somewhat of the days that are gone’: Memory, Legacy and the Preservation of the Patchwork Quilt’ in Inheriting the Family: Objects, Identities and Emotions. Edited by Katie Barclay, Ashley Barnwell, Joanne Begiato, Tanya Evans and Laura King. (Bloomsbury, 2025) https://www.bloomsburyhistorytheorymethod.com/encyclopedia?docid=b-9781350404878

Visit our academic, heritage, education and advocacy project Within the Frame.

Access our Published Resources for Within the Frame here.

Watch Dr Jess Bailey and Deb McGuire lecture for The Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art

‘Our folk on twilting in our parlour’: The Pragmatic Emotional Networks of the Quilt Stampers of Allendale, 1870-1920. Quilt Studies Journal, (2023), 24, 37-69.

Quilt Studies Journal, Vol 23, 2022 "Remember Me". Love, Loss and Legacy. Memorial Textiles in Britain, 1790-1890.

Concerned about Sustainable Quilting? Listen to my conversation with Zoe at Check my Thread

Indigo Quilts: A Quilt Study by The American Quilt Study Group - The Copp Family Indigo Quilt.

Medallion Quilts: A Quilt Study by The American Quilt Study Group - The Agnes Bentham Quilt.
Visit Heritage Crafts site for details of our advocacy work with Within the Frame to have this skill recognised.
'Remember Me'. Domestic Textiles in Britain 17890-1890: Memory, Identity and Emotion Submitted to Oxford Brookes University for the award of Masters by Research 2022.
'Quilt Time' A film by Lily Ford for The AHRC Inheriting the Family Network. Quilts and Family Inheritances.
Hear My Wholecloth from the Hills Episode for Haptic & Hue Podcast www.hapticandhue.com
Listen to me discuss The Ann West Coverlet, from the V&A Museum on BBC Radio 4 Moving Pictures.
My quilting practice. My interview for Quiltfolk's Virtual Show & Tell
Read my Quarterly Column for The Quilter Magazine by joining The Quilters' Guild of the British Isles here
See and hear me share my textile research and quilt making practice in other publications.
I'm an appointed Advisor to The Quilters' Guild Museum Collection. Find out more about this important collection here

My Quilts

  • The Pragmatic Sanderson Star Quilt
  • Remember Me: Text and Textile Sources. FOQ 2024.
  • British Baby Quilts in Space and Time 1700-1990.
  • The Wool Calamanco Quilt: Quilting as a Georgian.
  • Hand Quilting in a Frame
  • The Swaledale Farm Quilt
  • Too Long a Winter Strippy Quilt
  • The Agnes Bentham Applique Quilt
  • The ‘Remember Me’ English Frame Quilt.
  • The Midsummer Harvest Wholecloth Quilt
  • The Antique Quilt Frame Chronicles – A New Beginning.
  • A Quilt Coat of Many Colours for My Girl

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