Talk: Quilts, Emotions and Inheritance in Swaledale

2pm, followed by Tea & Coffee

Join historian and traditional hand quilter Deborah McGuire to explore the powerful role that quilts can play as objects of emotion in their makers’ and owners’ lives.

Old quilts survive because families and subsequent owners thought them important enough to keep safe. Deb’s work as an historian explores how quilts carry emotions on journeys between people, across long distances and through time.

This presentation includes a short film about quilt making in Swaledale, produced by Lily Ford as part of the AHRC Inheriting the Family Research Network.

The film and presentation explore the life of an antique Swaledale quilt in The Collection of The Quilters’ Guild of the British Isles to illustrate what quilts can reveal today about what was important to families, communities, and generations in the past. The practice of hand quilting in a flat frame was part of the heritage and history of life in the Dales. Amongst this important collection of antique quilts on display and sale at Tennants Auctioneers’ Costume, Accessories & Textiles Sale on 26^th May, join Deb to explore the emotional and traditional craft of hand quilting in Swaledale and beyond.

ABOUT DEBORAH MCGUIRE

Deborah McGuire is researching her PhD thesis ‘Emotional Journeys. The British Quilt in Space and Time 1770-1920’ at Oxford Brookes University. Deb’s research project into the Quilt Stampers of Allendale will be published this summer in Quilt Studies Journal; ‘Our folk on twilting in our parlour’: The Pragmatic Emotional Networks of the Quilt Stampers of Allendale, 1870-1920.’ Deb writes a regular column linking quilt history with current making for The Quilter Magazine. She is an advisor to The Quilters’ Guild Museum Collection and serves as a non-Executive Director to the charity. Deb is a passionate hand quilter, promoting the vernacular practice and patterns of British hand quilting. You can see her work at www.plainstitch.co.uk or on IG @plainstitchdeb.

The Arts and Humanities Research Council, UK support this academic work under the reference AH/T003308/1. Learn more about the Inheriting the Family Network visit. www.inheritingthefamily.org

Tickets: £12, including tea & coffee

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