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Meet Katherine Gough: Preserving a Family Legacy of Welsh Quilting
Annual Online Retreat, Behind the Stitches - 3rd November 2026
Katherine Gough working with traditional quilting materials. Photograph courtesy of Katherine Gough.
For Katherine Gough, researching the history of Welsh quilting began with a personal connection: her grandmother, Sarah Marion Davies, a Rural Industries Bureau quilter in the South Wales Valleys during the 1930s.
At our People & Places 2027 Online Retreat, Katherine will share her research into the Abertridwr quilters, drawing on family archives, inherited quilting materials and the story of her grandmother's work.
From Family Archives to Quilt Research
Quilted sample featuring traditional motifs. Image courtesy of Katherine Gough.
Katherine had already gathered a substantial collection of family archives when she met members of the British Quilt Study Group (BQSG) during a Welsh quilting weekend in Lampeter, organised by the Welsh Quilt Centre.
After inheriting designs, photographs, templates, quilting frames, carders, and a quilted dressing gown from her grandmother, Katherine wanted to learn more about the women who quilted through the Rural Industries Bureau (RIB).
Following her first BQSG seminar in 2023, she was inspired to develop her research further and successfully applied for a BQSG bursary in 2024/25.
Her resulting paper, exploring the work of the Abertridwr quilters, appears in Quilt Studies 27.
Although Katherine had previously completed dissertations for her degree and master's studies, researching her own family history presented different challenges.
With so much personal material to explore, she found herself following numerous avenues of investigation. Support from BQSG mentors and experienced peer reviewers helped her focus the research into an academic paper.
A cot quilt design from Katherine
Discovering the Stories Behind the Stitches
One of Katherine's favourite aspects of research is exploring historical newspaper archives.
Articles relating to quilting frequently appeared on women's pages, surrounded by recipes, household advice, and reports of local events.
Katherine admits that these newspapers can be wonderfully distracting. One particularly memorable discovery was an article entitled "Try rice as a vegetable!", complete with suggestions for preparing and serving rice.
Her research into the 1930s has also provided a broader understanding of the political, economic and social circumstances of the period, alongside the remarkably detailed accounts of everyday life recorded in local newspapers.
A selection of templates preserved in Katherine
Keeping Traditional Welsh Quilting Alive
Katherine's interest in quilting extends beyond historical research.
She enjoys patchwork and machine quilting and is currently developing her hand-quilting skills in the traditional Welsh wholecloth style, using her grandmother's designs and quilting frames.
She also hopes to reproduce her grandmother's quilted dressing gown and has been gathering the materials needed to begin the project.
Her current research interests include connections with the 1937 Paris Exposition, royal connections and Clara Novello Davies.
Another project involves studying a quilted egg cosy belonging to her grandmother. Katherine has visited the V&A East Storehouse to examine a comparable example and is now experimenting with constructing one herself.
Newspaper article
Remembering the Rural Industries Bureau Quilters
Katherine has been travelling and speaking about the history of Rural Industries Bureau quilting and its significance to women in the South Wales Valleys.
The RIB quilting initiative began in 1928, when Mavis Fitzrandolph, then Mavis Hay, helped establish quilting groups in communities in the South Wales Valleys and North East England. The initiative continued until the outbreak of the Second World War in 1939.
With the centenary approaching in 2028, Katherine hopes to encourage recognition of this history across the six South Wales Valleys areas associated with the initiative.
She is particularly interested in bringing renewed attention to local quilting histories that have become less widely known.
Katherine
A Lifelong Love of Sewing
Katherine's enthusiasm for textiles began at home, learning to sew on her mother's treadle sewing machine, and continued at school under the guidance of her needlework teacher, Mrs Cook.
At 14, she received her own electric Singer sewing machine to support her Dress and Design O-level studies.
During her teens and early twenties, she made bridesmaids' dresses and ball gowns, developing a particular enthusiasm for the frills and ruffles fashionable during the 1980s.
After a period away from dressmaking, Katherine has rediscovered her enjoyment of sewing and now has several textile projects underway at any one time.
She also volunteers at her local repair café, helping with clothing and textile repairs, and has taken on the role of volunteer secretary for BQSG.
Katherine's grandmother's quilted dressing gown also featured in an episode of Antiques Roadshow, filmed at Caerphilly Castle and broadcast on 6 October 2026.
Join Katherine at People & Places 2027
Katherine's talk, Sarah Marion Davies: Abertridwr Rural Industries Bureau Quilter, will explore her grandmother's story, the work of the Abertridwr quilters and the research published in Quilt Studies 27. Buy your copy directly from BQSG.
She will also share material from the collection she inherited, offering an insight into the designs, tools and surviving records connected with her grandmother's quilting.
People & Places 2027 – The Quilters' Guild Online Retreat
Dates: 23–24 January 2027
Tickets: £55 for Quilters' Guild members
Format: Online, with recordings available for 28 days following the event
Join us for two days exploring the people, places and stories connected with quilting.
You can also follow Katherine's dressmaking, quilting and research projects on Instagram at @abertridwrstar.
More From Annual Online Retreat
Meet Katherine Gough: Preserving a Family Legacy of Welsh Quilting
Meet Katherine Gough and discover her research into Welsh quilting, her grandmother Sarah Marion Davies and the Rural Industries Bureau quilters.
People & Places: Discover the Programme for Our 2027 Online Retreat
Explore The Quilters’ Guild Online Retreat, 23–24 January 2027. Discover quilting history, creative techniques, workshops and more. Members only, £55.
Meet Julia Langley: Let's Play Stitch Bingo!
Discover Julia Langley's creative approach to decorative machine stitches and join her for Stitch Bingo at the Quilters' Guild online retreat in January 2027.
