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Deborah McGuire

Deborah McGuire

Historian. Writer. Quilt Maker.

  • Bio
  • My Quilts
  • Academic Research Projects.
  • Within the Frame
  • Published Academic Research Outputs
  • Public Press & Media.
  • A Scant History of Patchwork & Quilting in The British Isles
  • FAQs: Hand Quilting in a Flat Frame
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Category: Quilts

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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Quilts

Waste Not Want Not Quilt

Nov 14, 2020Feb 4, 2023 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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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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Quilts

The Daisy Quilted England Wholecloth

Aug 31, 2020Feb 4, 2023 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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Quilt History, Quilts

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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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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Quilts

The Misses Barron Quilt – Part 2.

Mar 1, 2020Feb 4, 2023 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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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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Quilts

PlainStitch. What’s in a name?

Feb 7, 2020Feb 4, 2023 Deborah McGuire

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

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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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