Deborah McGuire's Avatar

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.

167 Followers  |  258 Following  |  15 Posts  |  Joined: 11.01.2025  |  1.5269

Latest posts by plainstitchdeb.bsky.social on Bluesky

The lecture was recorded so do check the PMC YouTube in a week or so if you’d like to hear it.

31.03.2025 07:58 — 👍 1    🔁 0    💬 1    📌 0
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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.

28.03.2025 06:09 — 👍 4    🔁 0    💬 1    📌 0
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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.

19.03.2025 06:56 — 👍 11    🔁 0    💬 0    📌 0
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I loved talking to Zoe @checkyourthread about sustainable quilt making in the past, podcast episode available now.

19.03.2025 06:48 — 👍 7    🔁 0    💬 1    📌 0
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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.

03.03.2025 16:45 — 👍 6    🔁 0    💬 0    📌 0
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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.

03.03.2025 16:42 — 👍 2    🔁 0    💬 0    📌 0
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Photographing British quilts in their landscapes this week.

21.02.2025 21:17 — 👍 16    🔁 0    💬 1    📌 0
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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...

08.02.2025 10:27 — 👍 6    🔁 1    💬 0    📌 0
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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.

26.01.2025 17:13 — 👍 11    🔁 0    💬 0    📌 0
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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.

25.01.2025 17:31 — 👍 10    🔁 0    💬 0    📌 0
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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!

23.01.2025 11:19 — 👍 33    🔁 1    💬 6    📌 0
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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🤞

21.01.2025 13:42 — 👍 4    🔁 0    💬 0    📌 0
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A Sunday afternoon in mid January. Slowly repurposing old patchwork into something new.

19.01.2025 22:37 — 👍 6    🔁 0    💬 0    📌 0
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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 ❤️

14.01.2025 13:31 — 👍 12    🔁 0    💬 0    📌 0
A hand, mending a hand stitched mid nineteenth century hexagon quilt. A candle burns alongside.

A hand, mending a hand stitched mid nineteenth century hexagon quilt. A candle burns alongside.

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.

12.01.2025 18:15 — 👍 27    🔁 4    💬 2    📌 0

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