Deborah McGuire
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plainstitchdeb.bsky.social
Deborah McGuire
@plainstitchdeb.bsky.social
PhD Quilt Historian @lcflondon.bsky.social
I make quilts in a frame, and write about their emotional history❤️
www.plainstitch.co.uk
www.withintheframe.co.uk
Columnist, The Quilter Magazine.
Advisor, The Quilt Collection, York.
What a joy to fill the @paulmelloncentr with quilts! Thank you to the PMC team for platforming this understudied medium & @publiclibraryquilts & l's project Within The Frame advocating to be added to the Red List @heritagecrafts for preservation. You can explore our website for research resources.
March 28, 2025 at 6:10 AM
I gave a lecture about quilt makers in Allendale, since then we’ve also connected sampler making into this generational story. Anita @northumberland_sampler_house has captured this story of the Elizabeth Curry Sanderson sampler (grandmother of Elizabeth Sanderson the quilt maker) with this pattern.
March 19, 2025 at 6:56 AM
I loved talking to Zoe @checkyourthread about sustainable quilt making in the past, podcast episode available now.
March 19, 2025 at 6:48 AM
I wrote about the contested history of our attention, and needlework’s role in this historic concern for my column Notes on Quilting for @thequiltersguild magazine this quarter.
March 3, 2025 at 4:45 PM
Jess @publiclibraryquilts and I spoke to The Quilter magazine this month about our Within the Frame project with @heritage-crafts which works to safeguard and inspire the creative future of this craft through learning from its past.
March 3, 2025 at 4:42 PM
Photographing British quilts in their landscapes this week.
February 21, 2025 at 9:17 PM
This was such a lovely project with AHRC Inheriting the Family, out now with Bloomsbury or open access at library.oapen.org/handle/20.50...
February 8, 2025 at 10:27 AM
Testing colour placement in weaving patterns to mend some holes, whilst thinking about how we mend our ragged world on this squally Sunday. This a balm.
January 26, 2025 at 5:13 PM
All the fabrics I’ve ever loved before ❤️. Harvesting the fruits of twenty years of half-made paper-pieced projects to make something new out of something old.
January 25, 2025 at 5:31 PM
When you open the cover of a second hand book you bought for £1 online and out falls a huge bundle of vintage hand drawn quilting templates. Woo!
January 23, 2025 at 11:19 AM
There’s a perverse pathos in excitedly anticipating an event in minute detail for a funding application, whilst simultaneously acknowledging that it may not happen. Fingers crossed, it sounds compelling on the page🤞
January 21, 2025 at 1:42 PM
A Sunday afternoon in mid January. Slowly repurposing old patchwork into something new.
January 19, 2025 at 10:37 PM
Normalising the pleasures of making-skills as souvenirs. I went to Norway this winter, enjoyed their wool and knitting history, bought Norwegian wool, and on return have deliciously extended my holiday vibe and ensured the continued memory of it by knitting my own Selbu mittens. Its the best ❤️
January 14, 2025 at 1:31 PM
Mending another woman’s hand sewn quilt from the mid nineteenth century. There is an affecting intimacy in looking closely at the characteristic stitched handwriting of another.
January 12, 2025 at 6:15 PM