PlainStitch Deb
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I make quilts, study quilts, and write about their history deep in the English countryside. I'd say it was a hobby, but it's clearly a compulsion.
PlainStitch Deb
7M ago
I quilt in a flat frame. It is a technique that seems to invite a curious fascination, carrying as it does, a lot of historical baggage. This blog post aims to answer some of the questions that I regularly receive, and also to address some of the common misconceptions that those reactions are often based ..read more
PlainStitch Deb
1y ago
North country strippy quilt from before 1850. Antique British quilts made modern. Hand quilting ..read more
PlainStitch Deb
2y ago
In my mind, the magic of a quilt is its ability to travel through space and time telling stories about the people who made it, loved it, and the places where they lived. In making a quilt by hand, we perpetuate a long chain of work that women have done for generations. Whilst every generation ..read more
PlainStitch Deb
2y ago
In the summer of 2017, I recorded a contribution to a radio programme called Moving Pictures which appeared on BBC Radio Four. That programme was exploring a quilt called The Ann West Coverlet which is in the V&A Museum. At two places on this huge and complex coverlet were the small words, embroidered over a ..read more
PlainStitch Deb
2y ago
I’ve always been in love with the artisan nature of quilt making. You see, when I call myself a quilter, I’m thinking about an old creaky frame, months of stitched toil by hand, sewing as a devotion. It’s a mile away from the glossy marketing image of fast expensive sewing machines, jelly rolls and quilts ..read more
PlainStitch Deb
2y ago
I’m passionate about hand quilting (hear me discuss this topic in the latest Haptic and Hue podcast out at the end of this week (7 Oct 2021)). In a world where patchwork usually takes top billing, I always like to sing the creative and aesthetic praises of quilting. The idea of the antique quilt frame ..read more
PlainStitch Deb
2y ago
I’m missing my girl. She went off to university for the first time last week but before she went we spent the last few weekends working on this coat, or as I’m calling it, a talismanic maternal shield! This was a last minute commission so we shopped the stash at home, making up a simple ..read more
PlainStitch Deb
3y ago
Quilt historians have postulated that the graphic modern shapes and rich woollen colours of antique Welsh quilts are the origin for the much vaunted modernist quilts that went on to be made by the American Amish. Certainly, non-conformist religious migrant communities are documented as having stopped off in South Wales to restock ships as they ..read more
PlainStitch Deb
3y ago
When I first read the story of the Hawick quilter Janet Pow (1884-1962) the fact that jumped out at me was that she lived in a mill town, and she came from an extended family of textile workers. Of course, she was also a quilter. I was already fascinated by the quilts she helped to ..read more